Syd, having dropped ‘Tha Kyd’ for her solo venture, is hardly unknown. In fact, she’s been making waves with her music for years. She was the only founding female member of hip hop collective Odd Future, and helped their rise to fame by setting up a fake PR firm to get the music press to recognise their outlandish and profane music.

As the lead singer for The Internet, she creates wonderfully chilled-out, hip hop. Her recent solo album Fin is entirely self-produced and shows her to really be the true master of vibes.

Having joined Odd Future when she was just 16 years old, Syd stood out from an early age. It was her wile and cunning in her behind-the-scenes role as producer that put the group into the public eye for the first time. Her creation of The Internet, however, was a huge leap for Syd: she had never sung professionally before.

From novice to lead singer, she has mastered her instrument, developing stylistically into clever electro hip hop, producing music that seduces you, draws you into her world and refuses to let you leave. Particularly on Fin, Syd writes beautiful love songs about women. This is so refreshing in terms of perspective, because it has given us some accurate and beautiful representations of lesbians in music. ‘Body’ is sensual and intimate; it puts you in the moment and makes you never want to leave.

But woe betide any music journalist who thinks that they can class Syd’s music as ‘queer hip hop’. Syd, in an interview with Faster Louder, said: “I’m not interested in just being seen as a gay singer. I didn’t ever want people to listen to me […] because I’m gay. I wanted people to listen to my music because they were feeling it.”

Part of the new generation of modern women carving out spaces for themselves all over the music industry, Syd’s odd future will be anything but boring.

 

Jemima Skala