Chynna Is Rapping Her Demons Into Submission
In my somewhat distant youth, I was very interested in the Emo trend, particularly the emotional music. I wasn’t too interested in the whole Emo look, but I was a big fan of the music. I won’t get into it, but the reconciliation of the leaders of the Black Parade—My Chemical Romance—got me thinking about the brash, honest, and ugly music that I was so incredibly fond of. But, to be honest, I never really got out of my “Emo phase.” So it seemed like a good time to introduce y’all to a Black woman that brings out my inner Emo, without reminding me of the cringiness of my youth.
1,468 Likes, 29 Comments - Chynna (@chizzyano) on Instagram
Hailing from Philadelphia, Chynna reimagines Emo without the chaos. She too had her own Emo phase (“It was 2007, peak emo, but being Black and living in the hood, that part of me could only exist on MySpace, because I was not about to walk down the street in a Hot Topic outfit,” Interview Magazine) and got her start in another industry when she signed to Ford Models at just 14. She now finds more creative fulfillment in rap. Much in line with the Emo tradition, Chynna uses music to get vulnerable and strip away our jaded sense of things that seem more glamorous on the surface.
She proved her talent early on with music she created as a teen, but Chynna’s 2016 EP Ninety marked a shift in how far she was willing to dive into the abyss. The project chronicles her opiate addiction, spurred by the death of mentor A$AP Yams, and commemorates her being 90 days sober. “A lot of it was written at the darkest times of my opiate use. I saw sides of myself that I otherwise would have never seen. They're not sides that are particularly good, but sides that you need to see to know what you're capable of,” she explained to Billboard. Chynna’s expression of her own truth exposes listeners to the sinister reality behind the drug use that rappers use for streams and Instagram followers and reveals that we are stronger than our most terrifying demons.
Her follow-up projects carry on this conversation and add to the all-around darkness of her rap persona. "My sound is scary and dense and kind of cryptic but it sets a mood ... creates a kind of dark doomsday atmosphere that still if you want to listen closer you’ll get something more from it, but if not it sets a tone" (XXL). There are layers to Chynna’s raps, most delivered with a deadpan pointedness. The monotonousness in her tone creeps up on you, and her razor-sharp, tongue-twisting lyrics stab you in the heart with a deadly swiftness, hitting just as hard as a Rico Nasty yell. Lyrics like “Do y’all feel his impending doom?” and “You calling out for me, might need a seance” work to build the eerily hellish landscape of her particular rap style. She further paints this picture in music videos that are equally as unsettling. “The Conversation” explores serene natural scenery and a trail of bodies through a quaint town. “Asmr” takes cues from its own haunting beat and jostles its audience with disorienting effects and hazy, sickly lights.
For Chynna, Emo is more of an artistic brand than an aesthetic to play in. She invites the darkness because she has already immersed herself in its deepest end. My Emo phase may be over, but Chynna proves that spooky season never really ends.
