Bullseye with Jesse Thorn is a production of MaximumFun.org and is distributed by NPR.

It's Bullseye, I'm Jesse Thorn.

The rapper Chica is just about old enough to rent a car.

When she was born, two pox snoop and mace were at the top of the charts.

In fact, the day she was born, March 9, 1997, was the day Biggie Smalls was killed.

Chica grew up in Alabama. Her parents, Nigerian immigrants,

played a lot of music from their home country during her childhood.

As a teen, she'd listened to Outcast and Wale and, like so many teens before her,

a lot of Avril Lavigne. She dreamed of growing up to be an MC and eventually she did become one.

She's on a major label. She has some EPs under her belt and this summer,

her debut LP, Samson The Album. You'll hear some of that later on.

But the path that she took to get here wasn't anything like that of Outcast or Wale or for

that matter, Avril Lavigne. Chica was about 19 when she went viral for the first time.

She shot a video shortly after the 2016 election where she put on white face makeup.

A couple years later, she did a freestyle diss track, the target of which was Kanye West

and his support of Donald Trump. And the beat was Kanye's own Jesus Walks.

The young woman has bars. But viral videos are, if not quite disposable at least,

I don't know, ephemeral. And Chica is a real MC. If you're looking for more proof,

here's a single from her new album. It's called Requiem for a Dream.

Chica, welcome to Bullseye. It's so nice to have you on the show.

Hi, thank you for having me. I'm enjoying myself so far.

Oh, I'm glad to hear. Well, bad news. We have to do an interview now.

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