Bbyafricka Is L.A.’s Modern-Day Renaissance Woman
In a far-reaching conversation, the poet, rapper, and model, Bbyafricka, talks about everything from Disney Channel nostalgia to health scares to her latest gem, "Above Average."
Graphic via Evan Solano
Staley Sharples' Letterboxd page will receive its own documentary one day.
In Los Angeles, knowing your astrological Big 3 is more important than knowing your own blood type. Case in point, within the first 10 minutes of meeting at a local botanical garden, Bbyafricka and I have already exchanged ours. My placements aspect positively to her Virgo rising and Cancer sun, which she notes as something that makes her feel more maternal and nurturing. Radiating warmth, Bbyafricka balances being soft-spoken with a cutting wit and easy smile that puts me at ease as we dive into her latest project, Above Average, and its upcoming deluxe release.
A portrait of the modern-day renaissance woman, Bbyafricka is the do-it-all rapper, singer, creative director, and visionary behind hits like the Saweetie-featuring “Baby Mama Coochie” and “Downtown & Cigarettes,” which currently holds two million Spotify streams and counting. Above Average is her sixth full-length project, a total love letter to 2000s MySpace rap and candy-colored synth pop. The project is made for the club nostalgists who grew up watching Disney Channel and huffing Jessica Simpson’s Fancy. Opener “High as Fuck” is best blasted during the rolling of pre-party blunts while making increasingly desperate and futile attempts to symmetrically apply eyeliner.
Much like the water signs in her chart, Bbyafricka finds an ebb and flow among the endless demands of being a successful independent artist and parenting her young son, a water sign baby just like her. “It’s definitely giving, like, Hannah Montana,” she jokes. “I don't know how I do it sometimes. Some days are harder than others. But I love being a mom. You have to remind yourself that you're also learning too. You have to have an idea of the kind of mother figure, or adult figure that you want to be, and things you don't want to reoccur, and cycles you want to break.” She reflects that in her family, strength is shown through stoicism, but she’s challenging that by putting words to her emotions and speaking her truth in her passion for her music.
Using her voice, literally, is a major element of Bbyafricka’s personal healing journey following a life-threatening experience with Stevens-Johnson Syndrome (SJS) and a two-month hospital stay. While unconscious during the incident, she was intubated, which she says still affects her speech and vocal tone. Bbyafricka emphasized that upon her release from the hospital, all she wanted to do was get back to the studio and make up for the time that was taken from her.
Though still a somewhat tender subject, she hasn’t let the health scare slow her down musically. Pouring her feelings into her writing has empowered her to process and reconnect to what energizes her. As for rest, she’s prioritizing that too: “I enjoy my free time. I'm gonna watch my shows, I'm gonna smoke my weed, I'm gonna eat my snacks, and I'mma cook. That makes me happy.” Real Housewives of Atlanta is a TV staple for her, but Potomac has also earned her praises (“I don't support the behavior, but I'm tuned in.”)
The time taken to recharge has led to her newest single, “BBYCODED,” dropping on her birthday. Bbyafricka has just knocked out shows in Portland, San Diego, and her home city of L.A. Through it all, Bbyafricka is moving like water, flowing in the direction of life and refusing to settle for a single identity: “It’s like the perfect world. Hannah Montana. Me and my wig.”
Getting in that headspace makes sense because you've definitely been through a lot in the last several years. I can imagine that might impact where you would be creatively too. I wanted to ask you about your experience with Stevens-Johnson Syndrome. After the immediate incident, what was the mental process of recovering from something so traumatic like for you? How did that impact your art?
Bbyafricka: It wasn't long after [I left the hospital] that I was like, dang, I need to go back to the studio. I definitely wanted to right away when I got home, because I felt like I had all these things to talk about, I just had an opportunity to tell stories through my experiences. Even if they're bad, I know good art comes out of those. It’s not anything that really kept me down creatively. Physically, I couldn't really just get up and go to the studio because my voice was still healing and getting back to normal, because I had a breathing tube down my throat.
It takes a while for your voice to get back how it was. I don't even think my voice is all the way back to how it was. I don't know if it can be. When I got out of the hospital, I forgot that I was doing music, because I wasn't really thinking about that. I started going through my notes, and I was like let me just take a look, and I would hear these notes and it inspired me to feel like I was on to something, and get back to what I’m trying to do. I didn't have those two months that I was in the hospital, so I wanted to make that time up and immediately get back to work.
I'm definitely much better. Even talking about it, I'm definitely in a better place. I only really had issues talking about it in the beginning, but once I was able to talk about it with other people, I realized I'm healing better. I don't look at it as such a sad thing.
It was a very hard time for me, that I was open to making public, because I knew I would get over it faster and know I'll be okay because... I needed some perspective from it all. My family is good. I feel like they definitely saw more than I remember, because I was sedated, so I don't really remember much at all. They had to see it in real life, in real time, and see how rapidly things changed. They're doing better. I feel like, in my family, a lot of us keep things in and try to be strong, instead of knowing that you can be strong and also talk about it—that shows strength too. Rather than keeping everything inside.
What kind of music did you grow up on?
Bbyafricka: A lot of Jagged Edge, Prince, Erykah Badu, Ginuwine—R&B really. A lot of R&B. That's why I have more fun with the melodic, raw kind of sound.
You've mentioned rock is a big influence for you too, will you dive into that more?
Bbyafricka: Maybe with what I know with music now, I could do that better. I have some songs in the cut, deep in the cut, that are like that. I want to scream on a song. I definitely could see that, that would be fun. I'm sure that would be healing to me. I feel like I don't have a screaming voice, but you never know. Instead of just holding everything in, that's gonna be my way of letting everything out.
The fact that you're open to talking about it, with how recent and intense the experience is—the mental, the physical, everything—coming back from that, I can sense that strength and vulnerability in your music as well. I was like, this is a woman who is totally herself. How have you developed your art, and yourself as an artist? I know you started writing poetry—can you walk me through your journey from then to now?
Bbyafricka: From poetry, I would write songs when I was little. Before I was going to school, I would just be writing things. and then it went into me having access to people to send me beats. I would work with producers who would give me beats, and then started trying to make my own on my iPad, honestly having full creative space to learn, by myself, what to do—and the beats were not really my forte, they were just very hard.
I decided to learn how to do music and get more comfortable practicing by myself and learning exactly what my sound is, and who I wanna be as a musician. A lot of trial and error and doing shit, and loosening up. Being like, yeah let’s do this, or let's get more comfortable. Working with other artists too, and just friends, seeing how they can just be free and play with characters and have fun with it—that ultimately came to be how BIGAFRICKA was made, my first actual album. I was just having fun.
Fun is the best way to continue to want to do something, and learn things.
Bbyafricka: When you're a new artist, it's fun to try shit and put it out there and see how people react to it. Somebody's gonna like it. It's just fun!
Do you still feel that way?
Bbyafricka: I definitely do right now. There was definitely a time, after The Rapture, where it wasn't really fun anymore to me. I think I just needed new experiences, and I feel like what worked for me was [working with] different producers who have different sounds. Everybody kind of knows me for rapping, but there's like certain producers at times that like want to get me on other things, that don't really know I can be melodic or that I have the sound. My first tape Brain Damage, they always try to play on that and I'm like okay, let me just like play on it myself. I always feel like [melodic songs] are more fun anyway, I definitely have more fun with those than just rapping. Sometimes it's fun to rap when I think of something really witty to say, and I'm like this is fun because I'm gonna eat it up. But when I'm harmonizing and layering, I enjoy that more.
We have to talk about your Disney Channel references, like “Phil of the Future."
Bbyafricka: You remember that show?
Of course I remember that show.
Bbyafricka: That was my show, I love that show. It was such a cool show. I really felt like life was going to be like that. Like damn, I can't make somebody out of a hologram? I mean they do that now, but can it sing and dance? People don't just have those in their house. Unless you're rich as hell, and you probably still don't have that in your house. Maybe you saw it before but it's not just in your house casually, like in your closet.
No, but it should be. It should be like that.
Bbyafricka: That was the future I was promised, honestly.
So you were a Disney Channel watcher?
Bbyafricka: Yeah, I loved That's So Raven, Lizzie McGuire. I love Lizzie McGuire. I was so obsessed with her. I have—well, had—some Lizzie McGuire pajamas, I had all the shit, because that's my girl. Stuff by Duff? I had her little CD player, I wasn't playing on that.
Were you a CD burner? I miss that.
Bbyafricka: That was such a good, wholesome era. Just so innocent.
Are you shooting other videos for the deluxe edition of Above Average?
Bbyafricka: Yes! I did a video to “High as Fuck,” it's not done.
“High as Fuck” wasn't the first song on my album originally, I totally scrapped the other one, I said no, this is not needed. She came in and she was hitting too hard and I said no, no, no. They need a little oomph. Get into the vibes, let's bump this up. The inspiration was really like, what's that song with Miley Cyrus? “In the club, high off purp with my shades on…” It kind of gave me that vibe. I went with it, and I was like okay, I like this song. The producer was like,I think we got one. I know that he didn't expect me to get into that studio and do a song like that. It was like okay, we're in a new era.
I'm trying to do a video for “Just Like Me”, because I have a feature on there that the girls are gonna eat it up. I just got the deluxe list together a couple days ago. There’s really so much music that I don't know what to do with, so there’s probably going to be one more video besides those two.