Why Erica Banks' Club Rap Bangers Hit Differently

When it comes time to declare 2024's song-of-the-summer, Shaboozey's "A Bar Song (Tipsy)" will no doubt be a serious contender. In the face of Kendrick Lamar's weapons-grade Drake extinguisher "Not Like Us," the Virginia artist / Beyoncé collaborator's insanely popular J-Kwon interpolation provides a boot scootin' boogie alternative to the Compton ceremonial c-walk. While that whiskey-soaked earworm stumbles towards ubiquity, his other single "Drink Don't Need No Mix" with Dallas' own BigXthaPlug speaks to a season full of similar down home vibes.

Fueled by everyone from hit-making rappers Moneybagg Yo and Quavo to mainstream behemoths Eminem and Post Malone, these sorts of genre-hopping team-ups with folks like Morgan Wallen and Jelly Roll are all-but de rigueur now. An altogether logical outcome considering the American South's preeminence in contemporary hip-hop, the significance of this recent spate of country-fried crossovers isn't lost on rapper Erica Banks.

"I could probably do a very fire country song," she says, seated across from me with a bright red Gatorade close at hand to nurse a late night NYC clubland hangover. "I wanted to try just to say I did it, but I think now that it is on my brain again, I'm going to try that."

Chances are, though, that whenever Banks does decide to go this route, the DeSoto, Texas-raised rapper won't rely on a high-profile collaborator to make it happen. Those who've followed the self-anointed Flow Queen's career, from the viral 2020 breakthrough "Buss It" through more recent singles like "Hoe Please," know that she's generally inclined to go it alone. And since parting with Warner Records, that individualistic streak remains very much intact.

"Being independent, of course, it allows me to just wake up and just do shit how I want to do it," she says. "I don't have to worry about getting anything approved."

A rare exception to her largely feature-free catalog, last month's "Extra" arrived with a verse from Big Boogie out of Memphis. "It really just comes from us just being friends for a few years," Banks says of the decision to bring the Yo Gotti signee onto the raunchy track. "One day I was like, hey, I got this record, I think you'll be great for it." While that straightforward logic characterizes a great number of rap songs nowadays, she seems especially fond of his professionalism not just in the studio but at the music video shoot itself. "He showed up on time, which was crazy because I was late for my own video!"

Though some lyrical-miracle types might be quick to dismiss Banks' booming brand of club-centric rap, her themes as raunchy as they are empowering, she insists upon a fairly rigorous work ethic that speaks to hip-hop's classic songwriting core. "I don't punch in," she declares, referring to the common practice employed by today's rappers. "I actually write my music first and then I recite it."

While Banks takes a to-each-their-own attitude towards those who do hum and mumble their way through the process, writing out rhymes comes more naturally to her. Still, she holds court as a prolific freestyler, as evidenced by her YouTube channel's numerous professionally shot clips. Even beyond the press run moments for outlets like On The Radar, she takes these particular songs about as seriously as her proper singles, from choosing beats to putting together outfits for the corresponding videos. "I just got to fit it in my schedule," she says, "but people enjoy the freestyles, so it's something that I try to do often." 

Going from traditional to downright austere by today's standards, Banks' studio sessions generally consist of solely her and the engineer, eschewing the entourage to focus on the music with beats by her preferred set of producers. "I don't like me and my homegirls in there," she says. "It's not a party." As for the libations, it depends on the mood. Some nights call for tequila; others are better paired with wine by candlelight. Yet cannabis is a constant, one that either fosters the creativity ahead of or otherwise rewards it.

"There's no session without cannabis," she quips, her mastery of the grabba leaf well-documented, with apologies to any would-be weed carriers out there. Mindful of her throat-as-instrument, nowadays she opts not to smoke during the recordings themselves. "I'm disciplined now. I don't need the weed right away."

At the tail end of multi-day whirlwind run of New York press stops and club appearances, Banks concedes feeling tired, and justifiably so. But now that's she's gone independent, with support from Create Music Group, she owns her success in a way that may not have been possible before. An intense few days spent in hip-hop's birthplace notwithstanding, she regularly factors rest into her weekly routine, scheduling downtime like she would any of her necessary activities. "I try to do three things a week that are productive, whether it be a video shoot, a photo shoot, [or] going to the gym to perfect my performances," she says. "I try not to make it feel like a job, but I still get up and do something every day."

Judging by the millions of views and streams her new music garners, that modified hustle mentality seems to be serving Banks well "It's been working for me," she says. "My songs' been doing great, my numbers are doing great. So I think I'm doing a good job."

MESSIAH!, the villain wins (buy it / stream it)

Much like his hometown cohort and repeat collaborator MAVI, Charlotte, NC rapper MESSIAH! traffics in deeply thought lyricism over intricate and compelling production. On the villain wins, his follow-up to 2022's similarly brief Perfect 7, he rides out his rhymes over soul-spiked beats by Twotone and more electronically wavy ones by Harrison (of Surf Gang) and SoChildish. After the ambient opening musings of "my eyes!!," he admirably adjusts to the tempo shifts of "can't stand it!" and "wipe down music," elsewhere appealing to a higher power for the jazzier "in the mourning." As he insists that he's done with the sadder themes, "song cry" finds him wrestling with his player status amid some big feelings. Vayda brings an unapologetic edge to her brusque "god's fav" verse, while the aforementioned MAVI duets nimbly on the off-kilter "our daily bread."

Big Flowers & Messiah Musik, Save The Bees (buy it / stream it)

Kurdish-American rapper Big Flowers brings a worldview somehow both jaded and undeterred to Save The Bees. With producer Messiah Musik going leftfield with the beats and mixer GENG PTP augmenting the aesthetics further, his intricate rhymes evoke concern even when they veer into the beautiful abstract. The advice onslaught and secular sermonizing that pepper the album's tracklist serve to enhance the lyricist's existential dread and already heightened sense of mortality on "Antennae" and "Drones." He waxes poetic and pointedly about unseen ancestral homelands on "Enzyme" and splatters inconvenient red paint over the veil of political convenience on the jazz collapse "Perdita." An auspicious guest, Moor Mother latches onto the animist essence over the delicate strum and hum of "The Swarm," her interlude as precise and precious as necessary.

Three new tracks to snack on...

ilham, "uhm...ok?"

GeezLy, "U FEEL ME!?"

9lives, "I DID IT (feat. Kanii & Anycia)"