Interview: Nikki Lynette

Nikki Lynette is a badass Chicago based musician. I want to call her a rapping, singing HipHop artist but she doesn’t like to be boxed in to just HipHop or any one genre. Her music spans influences including punk rock, HipHop and pop. She has two mixtapes called Roses and Guns: The Totally Badass Mixtape that Rocks and Roses and Guns 2: The BADDER ASSED Mixtape that Rocks and an EP entitled The Strong Survive. But she’s multi-talented ya’ll: not only did she write, produce and perform the entire EP, she sings, raps, and regularly contributes columns to ChicagoNow.com.

In this interview we talk about how the portrayal of females in HipHop has lead to Nikki’s alienation from the culture; walking the line between selling out vs. keeping it real; and an artist’s obligation to their fans and the style that earned those fans in the first place. Nikki also loves technology and gadgets, so she told us about her friend (a professional video gamer) who builds fighting robots and her dream of living and dressing like the Jetsons. BADASS!