65
ROLLING STONEARTISTS TO WATCH
Sir Babygirl
IR BABYGIRL,
the hyper-real
pop alter ego
of 26-year-
old Kelsie Hogue, started out
as an Instagram art project,
a way for the musician and
comedian to find her place
in the world. “At first it was
very much me making memes
that were about my life, and
gender, and trying to figure
out how to be bisexual in a
world that still doesn’t believe
in bisexuality a lot,” she says.
But soon she channeled the
garish imagery of her posts
— which featured musings
on her daily life and selfies
covered in pixelated emojis
and glitter — into a new breed
of postmodern performance
art. Her music covers the
same teen-friendly territoryas Top 40 anthems (crushes,
parties) and dials it all up to
11, with sputtering pop-rock
production and histrionic,
Broadway-style vocals, all
while underscoring a uniquely
queer point of view. (She’s
been known to take the stage
wearing a pink strap-on har-
ness.) “I’m a boy and a girl, I’m
a man and I’m a woman, I’m
funny and I’m serious,” Hogue
says. “My girlfriend always
says that when I go and per-
form as Sir Babygirl, it’s like I’m
going into nonbinary drag.”
Hogue grew up playing
guitar, piano, bass, and
saxophone but transitioned
to stand-up comedy after col-
lege. Hearing the over-the-top,
self-aware pop of artists like
Charli XCX and “When I Rule
the World” singer Liz helpedher realize she could combine
her entire performing life into
one act. “I was like, ‘Oh... I
wanna be in that world,’ ”
she says. “It took me back to
all the music that they were
inspired by: Aqua, ‘Barbie
Girl,’ amazing cartoonish shit
that has always had a sense
of humor.”
Still, she stresses that her
work as Sir Babygirl isn’t a
satire of mainstream mores
so much as a refraction of our
wildest tendencies. “I know
I’m very absurd, but my sexu-
ality isn’t any more crazy than
Britney walking around with a
snake on her neck, singing ‘I’m
a Slave 4 U,’ “ she says. “You’re
just not used to seeing a strap-
on onstage.” CLAIRE SHAFFERS
Crudo
Means Raw
with the big baseball hats
and the Yankee jerseys. It
was different times; now
we have our own style here
in Colombia.”
He become obsessive
about beatmaking, studying
the work of Pete Rock and DJ
Premier. But he soon realized
he needed to hone his lyrical
perspective. “I didn’t want
to rap back in the day; it was
so much easier to just make
beats,” he says. “Then reality
checked in: You’re gonna keep
hiding under the beats?”
Restrictive new cannabis
laws inspired him to speak
his mind on “La Mitad de la
Mitad.” “I was probably angry
with the whole prohibition,”
Crudo says. “Smart people are
listening. Now I gotta clean
up my act and say substan-
tial shit. The song might
have a catchy hook, but the
substance should turn a light
on.” ELIAS LEIGHTN JUNE 2018,
an unusual
song rocketed
to the top
of Spotify’s viral chart in
Colombia: “La Mitad de la
Mitad,” which paired a smooth
beat with a terse lyric that
decries the country’s strict
new anti-drug laws. “All over
Medellín, they were banging
that track in nightclubs,” says
Crudo Means Raw, the man
behind the single. “It would
be the 2 a.m. part of the party
where it gets really grimy and
ratchet, and they would play
my song.”
The track fuses the sounds
of Colombia with the tech-
niques of American hip-hop,
a blend Crudo Means Raw
has been refining since high
school. There, he met future
reggaeton superstar J Balvin.
“We would download beats
from the internet and just
rap — that was the beginning,”
he says. “Trying to emulate
the whole baggy-jean flowI
HOMETOWN Medellín, Colombia
SOUNDS LIKE Dance-party protest pop
from ColombiaHOMETOWN Hanover, New Hampshire
SOUNDS LIKE Carly Rae Jepsen if she were a DIY queer punkTY SNADENRACHEL CABITT