FREEPU$$Y and Free Angel

Angel Davanport deserves to be famous. Society’s probably not ready for her, but that’s not her fault. She’s got the right ideas—the right rhymes, the right pipes, the right instincts, the right heart—and she knows it, too. Belligerently and defiantly titled FREEPU$$Y, her latest EP opens with the phrase, “you ain’t never ever had a love like this before,” and it’s true. Written on the heels of significant emotional pain, the mixtape is Davanport’s effort to reclaim herself, her heart, and her righteously beloved sexuality. If listeners walk into this one expecting thirty minutes of non-threatening lamentations from a woman missing and needing “her man,” they’re in for quite a shock.

That’s not to say the EP isn’t relatable. Despite being only five tracks long, each one clocking in at a little over four minutes, FREEPU$$Y covers a wide spectrum of emotion. “Follow the Leader” is dripping with the relaxed self-assurance of someone who knows what she has to offer, so confident in her fire as an emcee that she decides to spend the entire first track crooning vocals instead of spitting rhymes. With lines like, “I know what you live for / you cliffhang on every word,” it’s a good choice; Davanport the songbird sounds enticing enough to be haunting, especially when layered over CHI-VII’s dreamy, reverb-heavy production.

“Thank Use” sees the FREEPU$$Y debut of Davanport as a rapper, and anyone wondering whether her bars measure up to her vocals should feel adequately reassured by the time the first hook comes back around. With the help of pitch-correcting technology, hearing a rapper singing (or rather trying to sing) their own hook is no longer particularly striking. But Davanport is not just another rapper trying to sing, or just another singer trying to rap. Her lyrics are complex and riddled with subtext, and her meter shifts just enough to keep a listener on their toes without breaking them out of the groove.

“Thank Use” contemplates. It reflects. It recognizes. And it hurts like the devil as a result of all three, but without showing any signs of defeat. Even in the wake of fear and negativity, Davanport never lets you forget how determined she is to rise above it all: “I just wanna be somebody / I don’t want to be riflin’ through the dirt twiddling thumbs like a nobody.” On this track, she is as persistent as she is unapologetic.

“Caesar,” the third song, has Davanport fully acknowledging the toll of her heartbreak, as well as the power dynamics that inevitably precede it. Unlike “Follow the Leader,” in which she compels her audience to be vulnerable, “Caesar” describes the opposite. This time, it is Davanport whose walls are down, and it is her struggling to cope with someone else’s hold on her. Even when exposed and in pain, though, she never admits defeat.

“Caesar” bleeds almost seamlessly into the fourth track, “How You Due Me,” accompanied by Bernie Levv, the album’s only feature. Levv’s warm, soulful, earthy sound plays well with Davanport’s ethereal pipes. Whether singing or speaking, the combination of their voices gives the track both wings and weight. The final third of the song places a pleading, flustered male voice over the calm consistency of CHI-VII’s beats and the smooth, unbothered echoes of the two women who have already decided “I’ma keep chillin with my crew / I’ma keep doing what I do.” Not just any crew, either, but one composed of women, a girls’ club in a sea of boys’ clubs.

The EP’s final track, “PILLOW TALK,” is written in capital letters, which fits the furious, spitfire drive that Davanport works into every line she raps. She’s pissed, and unfortunately, for her detractors, angry Davanport sounds nothing short of excellent. “PILLOW TALK” has only the faintest remnants of the trancelike, wistful sounds that defined its predecessors. The bass is heavier, the beat is heavier, the rhymes are heavier, even her vocals are heavier, hungrier, more urgent and unforgiving.

“Why you fuckin’ playin’ / why you fuckin’ playin’,” she repeats, and you can hear how fed up Davanport is with the world’s refusal to either be serious or take her seriously (or both). “I don’t need no savin’,” she adds, just in case it wasn’t already abundantly clear that she wants your attention, not your help. The EP about heartbreak ends with these words, followed by “I’m so high / I’m so gone.” It’s a battle cry for freedom, along with the freedom of everything she is and everything she stands for.

There aren’t as many people who know Angel Davanport’s name as there should be, but those who do respect it as that of a true emcee, without the need for the “female” qualifier that shouldn’t—and wouldn’t—exist were it not such a stubbornly male-driven industry. Listening to FREEPU$$Y and other such gems from Davanport and the rest of her collective, Rapper Chicks, one has to wonder why.

Word of Davanport is spreading, albeit more slowly than it should. One can only hope that an industry that has previously kept its terrified doors firmly shut to her and her comrades—Psalm One/Hologram Kizzie, Fluffy, Ill-Esha—will have the sense to open them up before the Rapper Chicks batter them down.

“I am your leader,” Davanport sings, and you can almost hear her smiling as she says it. She isn’t our leader, not quite yet. But she should be.