Rico Nasty - Roseland Theater, Portland OR - August 27, 2018

[from New York] Per the website, the show started at 8p, two performers, so headliner at 9p. Of course it never works out that way. Then once inside it was a whole different story. DJ 8p-9p, Malibu Mitch 9p-945p, DJ, and poor little Rico Nasty not on till 10:30p,11p. I knew immediately I would not being seeing this Rico Nasty. Well, she was on by 8:45p, and was entrancing. I shut down shop and approached the stage mid-first-song and she was talking to the crowd about something. Then she got sort of stern and said “You got kicked off the island” and two white hippy-esque boys, fucked-up, got dragged (easily) off by security. It was an exciting pleasing start to the show. The rest of the losers in the audience were suddenly winners. It was an audience of oppressed people: queer, racial minority, female. Rico Nasty is not a loser, however. She is a bad bitch, the sort I sort of feel guilty for liking, but mostly don’t. Gorgeous for one. Tiny with a high ponytail and exotic jewelry. Fierce for two, like schoolyard violent fierce. I don’t care about her beating up female competitors so much but her co-opting of masculine posturing – all about it, always have been. One of her backup guys, in a doo-rag, wiped the sweat from her face mid-show. In her third questionable triumph, she focuses on mundane life issues – like cheating men, girls who steal your boyfriend, etc. – but, I find, this is the stuff that consumes most of us, even if it’s passe to admit it or we have the luxury of ending up in some life context where human relations can take second place to higher pursuits. Maybe it’s the working class context I group up in. Even as a kid, I wasn’t drawn to overtly politically active music. I liked angry uncouth music, riot grrl, hardcore rap, hardcore punk – they felt like a more accurate representation of where people come from and how people feel. Instead of a white middle class expectation of how people from those contexts should talk about their experiences. Pre this era of my life, I didn’t have to question these things as much – I annoy myself now. The whole audience was ecstatic, singing along to every song, but the most joyous member of the audience was right next to me, a large gay boy, dancing to save his life. She and the audience were generally tight. She took people’s phones and recorded little performances of herself for them. She laughed when someone handed her a paper with their name, number, and sign on it. “Before you eat this pussy, you better say a grace.”