When touching on the release she shares, “The overall theme is just feel-good music.”
Emerging Chicago rapper Nina Tech has released her ferocious EP Pull Up. The project rebaptizes her as a queer female wordsmith you should be watching right now. Equipped with four tracks, the experimental project displays Nina’s eccentric vocal prowess.
Thematically, the EP doesn’t follow a single guiding light beyond creating positive vibes, instead, she shares she hopes her confidence rubs off on her fans. “The overall theme is just feel-good music,” she says. “There’s no super deep message or nothing. It’s just me talking my shit and I hope when other people listen it makes them wanna go talk their shit.”
Inspired by how she was feeling over the past few months, Pull Up features facets of herself. NIna admits that her range of emotions and thoughts led her to express herself through the EP. “After this people can definitely expect me to keep going hard like I always have.” She also adds, “I’m also doing things I’ve never done before.”
Bred in Chicago, Nina refers to her music as “bad bitch music.” If you give her past releases a spin, it’s evident that her recording sessions are filled with energy. Her approach when she’s in the studio is to write her rhymes beforehand, no matter what. In 2019, she dropped Nina Gone Wild, over nine tracks she showcased the immersive rap universe she’d dreamed up.
“Calm,” “playful” and “confident” are three signifiers that also explain her blended sound which fuses pop with hip-hop. Her biggest influence is the late Left Eye, but Nina also confesses to loving Lil Kim, MC Lyte, Lauryn Hill, Lil Wayne and T-Pain.
Beyond her wordplay, the Chicago rapper also cultivates her image with innovative music videos. Last month, she dropped a visual to her single “Hocus Pocus” and she appeared as a superhero and a scientist amongst other roles she played. In another video for her track “Starter Kit” that dropped in December, Nina took a simpler approach and let her lyrics speak for her.
Pull Up plants Nina Tech amongst other lyricists in female rap that dabble with radical sounds that allow them to exist outside the mainstream hip-hop market. These talents include Kari Faux, Yung Baby Tate and BbyMutha who have each been on our radar for quite some time.
When tasked with describing how she feels about the current women dominating the rap industry, she shares, “I love it. Girls do everything better literally. It’s the shift in culture that we needed and I hope it’s like this forever.”
Stream Nina Tech’s EP Pull Up below.