Album Review: Kreayshawn - Somethin' 'Bout Kreay

The title's an apt one. Derivative, repetitive and not blessed with any obvious talent, there is still something about Kreay. Most obvious is the license she grants to rap nerds to listen to what is, essentially, solid pop music. Plus – the politics of beanie-wearing, word-murdering real MCs is one thing; the politics of a female artist objectifying other women, as Kreay does on Summertime, is a little more thought provoking.

Summertime is actually a neat way to think about Kreay. It has no real aesthetic appeal; loud and sugary, but punctuated with drug references and PG-rated cursing. It features two women (V-Nasty drops a guest verse) occupying a space usually occupied by male rappers, who we might describe as misogynists. The language is disparaging and some of the delivery is aggressive. Confrontational stuff. Gucci Gucci, a YouTube smash credited with launching Kreay into the stratosphere, is competent. Left Ey3 is a cute revenge fantasy. K234ys0nixz is good fun, if a little clumsy. Those moments aside, there's not much else to be savoured here.

There's a train of thought, popular among some highly celebrated critics, that Kreay is somehow 'not a rapper' and so her work doesn't deserve to be considered alongside other artists who are rappers. Leaving the weakest part of that argument aside (how do you define 'rapper'?), it falls flat for being irrelevant. Artists needn't be rappers to make good songs. The disappointment with Kreay is not that she isn't a rapper – whatever that means – it's that despite the fact there really is something about her the experience of sifting through her joints to get to that something is not much fun.