This Kind Of Devotion

Kitty Pryde “Okay Cupid”

Rap is a genre that rarely aims for or achieves an intimate sound, but that’s been changing slowly thanks in large part to Drake, who has popularized a mode of drunk-dial-confession rapping that allows a context for vulnerability that happens to have a built-in layer of mediation. Kitty Pryde’s breakthrough track “Okay Cupid” is a song in this mold – she raps as though she’s a bit groggy late at night, as if she’s spilling her guts to a crush who should be inches away, but is in fact nowhere to be found. Some people have qualms about this song because it’s a young girl romanticizing and accepting the behavior of a dude who is awful to her and stringing her along emotionally, and I totally get that from a “ugh, I hate when this happens to people” perspective, but the truth is that this happens to people all the time and the words and inflections in this song sound so true and lived-in that I wince at some points. There’s a lot of emotional complexity here, and certainly the sense that Kitty is aware that she’s being self-destructive and shouldn’t tolerate any of this, but can’t help herself. It’s hormones, it’s insecurity, it’s youth. And it’s so much more compelling than Drake could ever be – he’s always rapping from some position of power even when he’s presenting himself as weak, but Kitty is coming from the opposite end of the power dynamic and it’s fascinating and tragic to hear her try to assert some control over her emotions and the situation in her performance.

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