Kris Makes Rap & B for Lost Souls
Photos By Zhamak Fullad

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Music

Kris Makes Rap & B for Lost Souls

The Toronto MC returns after a two-year absence to talk about lost love, being too honest, and taking a chance on her new track "Too Much Woman."

The first time I meet Kris we are annoying a stuffy waiter at the Beverly Hills Hotel by only ordering a six dollar Bud Light instead of an expensive cocktail. “Honestly, I don’t care!” she says, laughing. I like Kris off the bat because she tells it like it is. And though a lot has changed in the two years that have passed since listeners last heard from her, that’s the one thing that hasn’t.

Born in Barbados, but raised in Toronto as a child, music was always a part of Kris’ life. “As a kid, I got into music, like writing little raps and stuff because I was a big Lil Kim fan,” the now 23-year-old explains. “But I would say also, just growing up in the city I was just introduced to a lot of people and grew up with a lot of people that had a passion for music—like my friends and stuff, so It kind of just came about naturally.”

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Kris began formally getting into music four years ago, citing her early love for Lil Kim as a paramount source of inspiration for what would later become her debut project Dont Feed the Animals. “On my first EP, I did like a freestyle over the beat for “Queen Bitch.” That song really is just powerful to me. A lot of her music put women on a pedestal. And of course, I was really young so it’s not like I could relate to every sexual reference but her confidence and stuff, that was what I was mostly drawn towards,” she says. “That’s how I wanted to make people feel with my music as well. Even if some people would consider it vulgar, I would consider it empowering.”

And so, that is what Kris’ 2015 EP became: A sonic vessel to which she was able to speak her mind honestly. Her powerful, upbeat songs with provocative bars and speedy sexual references drove a narrative over the course of its five tracks. In “Late At Night” she tells the tale of a woman who nonchalantly lives lavishly, spending money on her own terms and playfully dismissing the men in her life. Whereas, “Sip Slow” opens up with a downtempo beat, as Kris teases “baby why you frontin’/ I know you thought about me rockin’ your chain while I’m wearing next to nothing/got my grills on while we fuck.” Words and lessons of female empowerment became the EP’s main motif, though Kris wanted listeners to still have fun.

“I feel like when I was making Dont Feed the Animals I was feeling just like more hardcore and that project almost put men in their place in a way,” she explains. “To kind of make it equal cause we're used to men being able to talk down about women in their music. Even the dark cover was kind of showing that like yeah, women run this. It was almost like a death to all the stuff that the guys had been putting out in a way. I feel like that was a fun introduction to me because it was the first thing that anyone heard of me.”

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Life back then was good, she had recently begun a music program at Seneca and had just met her go-to producer Lef7y. The project did fairly well, garnering traction on Soundcloud and cementing her as an upcoming female MC to watch in Toronto—a niche that had yet to see filled. However, first love—both falling in and later, out of it—is what largely provoked a silence that spanned into a two-year hiatus. “While others are able to use toxic situations and heartbreak for inspiration, it held me back,” she reflects. “I look at that time in my life as good because it was before any stress. After the project, my plan was to stay consistent and keep releasing stuff but then life got in the way and that didn’t really happen. Even if the songs were ready, I wasn’t ready,” she says.

But, now she is. “Too Much Woman” a deeply personal song that unapologetically bares Kris’ soul is a welcome return for the artist, but in a way we’ve never seen her before—as a singer. Through the track, she shows off a strong vocal side as she coasts cooly along an ambient melody, evocative of 90s style R&B. And although she maintains she won’t completely neglect her rapping roots, showcasing her soulful vocals feels more authentic to her these days. “I feel like rap is almost like an alter ego or shell in a way because before I was feeling more fun and vulgar and stuff, whereas now I’m a little more vulnerable and I want people to feel that.” She says. “I think this [new] project is mostly going to be slow jams because that’s what feels real to me at the moment.”

Kris explains that the song, which was formally written over a year and a half ago, was pushed to the back burner numerous times after being tweaked tirelessly to perfection. However, what the singer now realizes is that all the song needed was self-honesty. “I feel like it was something I was trying to put into reality because I wasn’t there yet in my life. It’s just hard to take your own advice sometimes. So yeah, I guess that’s why I also didn’t put it out at the time because I didn’t really believe it. It wasn’t me. I wasn’t living it. Now I am, so I can actually release it and talk about it.”

Off her upcoming project, the track feels like a deep breath, where one can look at themselves honestly and acknowledge being happy with who they are and how far they’ve come.“The song is pretty much about like, feeling like you’re in between feeling not enough but too much for somebody. But in the end, you still choose yourself regardless.” It is clear that Kris has found peace—or something close to it.

Andrea Gambardella believes in a convenient, cultured but cost-effective lifestyle. Follow her on Twitter.