Female Drill Artist Princess Xixi on Disruption, Standing Her Ground and Her Debut EP ‘a dolls house’
Words: Douglas Jardim
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Nothing screams cunty like the Spotify bio for rapper, singer and DJ-extraordinaire Princess Xixi. The self-proclaimed “wasian Lily Allen” is a multi-faceted force to be reckoned with. At her most ferocious, she fires shot after savage shot at her hateful opps over infectious grime and drill beats. At her most vulnerable, pop-punk lyricism paints a politically and socially charged portrait of life as a young trans woman.
Drawing its name from Henrik Ibsen’s 1879 theatrical literature opus, the Northwest London native’s a dolls house EP is nothing short of playful and provocative. From brutal bangers like “leng loi 2.0” and “anubis”, to the soothing sounds of “leaves” and “validation”, Princess Xixi’s latest body of work offers a fun and fresh approach to genre-blending and revelatory songwriting.
Pausing EP release day celebrations for an in-depth convo with myself over Zoom, Princess Xixi divulged plenty of music production tea and important life lessons on how to be your best authentic self in the face of adversity.
Following multiple single drops, how did the development of the EP, a dolls house transpire and what experiences informed its creation?
Cultural commentary is something that I think is quite important. I use my music as a conduit to do that and provide a transfeminine perspective on society and on culture.
I definitely wanted a dolls house to have a cohesive narrative. It begins very much with me asserting myself – ‘Yes, I'm a bad bitch. Fuck the scene, haha. I hate you bitches, lol.’ Yet as the EP goes on it becomes a lot more introspective, with songs like the title track “a dolls house” that’s kind of a reflection on growing up in London.
I guess a lot of my impetus for making art is the profound need and desire to be understood, but also to reach other people and find a community who feel in similar ways to me - dealing with the pressures of transphobia, racism. This project is both intensely personal, but also a reflection and a mediation on the state of the world we live in right now.
Your first release "LENG LOI” was a big success. What inspired you to revisit it for the ferocious sequel and EP opener “leng loi 2.0”?
"LENG LOI” was very authentic to who I was at the time and the shit that I was going through. I said what I needed to, it had a very clear intention and it achieved that intention. The one difference between me and a lot of other drill rappers is that I have no intention of getting on the beat and lying.
It was my most popular song but in a lot of my shows I wouldn’t play it. There was a part of me that almost cringed when people brought it up. With my newer music there’s been so much of an evolution in the production, the quality of the songwriting and lyricism, but in the past few months I came to terms with [the song] a little bit more. Acknowledging this is an important work of art that fundamentally is a lot bigger than me now. The cultural impact it had for the community and also for representation. People love that song, that’s the reason I have a fanbase.
“leng loi 2.0” doubles down on the energy of that first song by giving a crazy, hard drill banger but then mixing in that evolution with the footwork, Jersey club inspired chorus and the singing in Mandarin Chinese.
As a trans artist, what has it been like navigating the grime, drill and rap scenes intrinsic to your London roots?
Just by being a trans woman in these spaces, my very presence is inherently going to be disruptive. For a while I was kind of tip-toeing around, being careful about how I would present myself. Eventually I got to a point where I was like actually, I don’t care. My existence in these scenes is already disruptive so let me just be very unapologetic about who I am.
There’s a lot of MCs in the grime, drill and rap scenes who probably don’t even listen to me but have written me off purely because of who I am. Unfortunately, as much as I love the music there’s a lot of bad people in the scene - but there’s also a lot of good people and I've met a lot of them, who support me very passionately.
At the end of the day, I’m a student of the game and I know how much respect I have for the music and the culture. Ultimately, having a certain amount of irreverence towards everything and not taking shit too seriously is kind of how I survive, stay sane and keep my head above water.
Besides yourself, which artists do you consider to be positive, disruptive forces in these spaces?
Nammy Wams and M.I.C (The Master of Inane Conversation), who I think is really shaking things up in terms of the openly political subject matters that he talks about in his music. Reptile B is a gay rapper and icon who’s absolutely dominating the game right now, as well as Missy P who also runs Sexy Lady Massive, a collective that are making sure women get heard and booked in the UK bass scene.
Around the halfway point of a dolls house, a downtempo soundscape paired with deeply personal storytelling emerges. Following a string of hard-hitting bangers in the first half, can you detail some of the songwriting and production processes for this dramatic second half?
I think “leaves” is actually my favourite song on the album. It’s very stripped back and it doesn't have that sort of bombastic production that some of the other songs do, yet I think the melody and the chorus is really gorgeous. A lot of my lyrics are quite direct but it contains some of my more abstract writing. It’s definitely the most raw and honest track on the whole project when it comes to exploring my own mental health and experiences with substance abuse, for example.
The title track is in some ways the only song on the EP that explicitly deals with the experience of being trans within British society. “validation” does that a little bit too but that’s more about being trans in relationships with cis men. “a dolls house” is the only one that really talks about wider societal issues.
As trans women we’re in a horrid situation where we’re such a tiny minority of people who don’t hold any institutional power and very few of us have large platforms where we can actually talk. But at the same time, despite being this incredibly small community we are talked about so frequently. We are politicised and made the subject of public discourse with such alarming frequency, intensity and violence. That’s the one reason why I think the title track is important. It talks about who we are in our own voices - in one voice at least.
Your continued support for Palestine is clear when looking at your social media profiles, as you’ve called out large music platforms such as HÖR for their dismissal of Palestinian voices. On Instagram, you shared an email asking them to take your set down and encouraged others to do the same. Why is it important for fellow DJs and musicians to speak up in solidarity during this time of conflict?
With the scene and the music industry in general, especially in the past couple of years, I’ve noticed this trend towards apoliticism. Music has always been such an important tool historically for resistance, I make rap and dance music with a very sort of punk edge to it. These three genres that I’m drawing from cannot be separated from their political history and yet right now a lot of the people in these genres are doing exactly that.
They’re making fun party music but then they’re completely silent on the genocide that’s going on. The fact that people weren’t speaking up, it made me want to be even more vocal because of just how angry I was. When I see people who are making their money and profiting off these cultures and sounds that were rooted in political resistance, and then being completely silent at a time when it’s really important to use our voices and our platforms to actually make some kind of difference and raise awareness, I think it’s disgusting and very spineless.
I’m very aware that my platform is full of people of colour, trans people and queer people, and I have a certain social responsibility that comes with that. I’m using my platform to voice my anger at the situation and also to inspire other people to be as angry about it and then take steps to participate in direct action or be disruptive in the workplace.
Ultimately, how do you hope fans and listeners will respond to a dolls house when compared to the reception of your earlier releases?
The one thing that I hope everyone gets from it, whether they like it or whether they hate it, is that it elicits some form of emotional reaction. Then I've done my job.
Photography: Amy Lauffer Neff | HMUA: Shuyu Xiong | Styling: Princess Xixi and Amber Reeves