Inside a downtown New York Metropolis loft, and Brooklyn’s very personal Lola Brooke is sitting in a make-up chair balancing a salad in a single hand and a cellular phone within the different. There’s an excitable buzz within the air as everybody preps her NME Cowl photoshoot, arranging strips of metallic tape for a backdrop whereas tying her right into a pair of platform heels. Regardless of having simply signed a significant label cope with Sony Information imprint Arista [Princess Nokia, KennyHoopla] earlier this 12 months, Brooke is totally comfy amidst the chaos, dealing with all of it with the poise of a seasoned professional.
It wasn’t too way back that Brooke was working shifts at a males’s shelter in Queens and days like this one felt extra like a dream than actuality. “My place was residential aide,” she tells NME. “I’d get house at eight within the morning and I’d go to the studio after work. I used to be so drained.” Throughout these lengthy shifts, music grew to become an escape for her. “It saved me sane,” she says. “I used to be going by lots in life and music helped me specific myself. It was extra me chasing remedy than simply chasing a profession. It’s what saved me going all through the day.”
One of many challenges Brooke cites was dwelling along with her mom throughout that point, a single father or mother who was “impartial and about enterprise” and fostered a strict house surroundings. Nevertheless, it was her mom’s religion in Brooke’s profession that in the end led to her changing into a full-time rapper in 2017. “I used to doubt myself a lot,” she says. “However as soon as my mother informed me it was cool to resign, I began believing in myself extra. I had reassurance.”
It was throughout that very same 12 months that Brooke launched her first music video, a clip titled ‘2017 Move’. The freestyle drew consideration from rap followers, who famous her wickedly fierce supply and the juxtaposition of highly effective, larger-than-life verses flowing from her barely five-foot body. She saved the momentum going with a string of follow-up tracks: ‘Bipolar’ the subsequent 12 months, ‘Money Out’ in 2019 and ‘My Bop’ in 2020. Although none of these led to rapid success, it didn’t cease Brooke from pushing ahead. “I’m a small package deal, however I include the bags although,” she says with amusing. “I do know myself and I constructed that confidence inside myself by self-knowledge. I don’t cease.”
5 years after the discharge of her first video, Brooke’s perseverance paid off. In 2021, ‘Don’t Play With It’ a gritty, sharp and boisterous observe that includes fellow Brooklyn rapper Billy B took off on TikTok when greater than 600,000 customers lifted the road “I carry bitches like I’m preggo (Pop-pop-pop-pop)” to soundtrack their movies. The track pushed Brooke onto the world stage, spun a remix that includes fellow feminine emcees Yung Miami and Latto and even obtained her on the lineup for Rolling Loud New York Metropolis’s pageant. Amassing 100 million streams (and counting) is not any small feat, however as the rapper informed NME earlier this 12 months: “Numbers don’t transfer me, hype doesn’t transfer me.”
So, what strikes Brooke? “I wish to have a huge impact on folks’s lives greater than numbers,” she says. “After I first began doing music I did it as a result of I used to be inspired and impressed by different artists to faucet into my emotions. That’s what retains me going. The numbers are simply the rewards.”
If her final aim is to influence the neighborhood she grew up in, she’s effectively on her technique to reaching it. “I’ve been getting random calls from again house saying, ‘You’re doing nice, the hood is impressed’,” she says with a vivid grin. “That alone makes me really feel the influence.”
“I wish to have a huge impact on folks’s lives”
Born Shyniece Thomas within the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighbourhood of Brooklyn, Brooke’s birthplace is pivotal to who she is right this moment. One side of New York’s underground scene that left an indelible mark on Brooke is its bustling drag neighborhood, whom she has been interacting with since a younger age. “I’m a giant fan of drag,” she says. “You don’t essentially have to make use of your authorities title every single day. [Drag artists] can have one other title. You could have totally different characters that you can be and also you’re not caught in a field. Talking to you proper now, I simply realised drag may need been the beginning of my alter-egos with out even realizing.”
She provides: “The tradition in New York conjures up me lots. After I open up my mouth, everyone is aware of the place I’m from. I couldn’t conceal it if I needed to.”
Along with her recently-released debut undertaking, ‘Dennis Daughter’, Brooke permits listeners to see the complete image of the place she got here from. “I would like them to know me as Shyniece, in addition to Lola Brooke,” she says. “I needed them to know that the explanation I’m Lola Brooke is due to what I’ve gone by. That is what inspired me to inform my story.”
That story entails being raised solely by her mom as her late father, Dennis, struggled with substance abuse points. “I used to be lonely,” she says of her tumultuous upbringing. “I didn’t have anybody to talk to as a result of my mother was working so onerous. So I discovered a technique to specific myself, whether or not it was for me or a member of the family or a pal, whoever.” At first, Brooke wrote down her emotions in diaries, getting comfy along with her pen earlier than she was in a position to articulate these emotions to the world. “Now I am going to the sales space and lay it down vocally,” she says. “I’m saying it out loud.”
“This success wasn’t a mistake. I didn’t get fortunate”
‘Dennis Daughter’ opens with ‘Intro (2023 Move)’, a brisk observe that sees Brooke paying tribute to her father, rapping “After I wanted love from my pops, they imprisoned him / Would of been fucked if I didn’t develop as Dennis child (I can’t think about)” over tense piano keys. The observe continues to unpack Brooke’s previous as she talks about escaping poverty. However her penchant for bravado remains to be combined in along with her vulnerability: “However this time round, I maintain that shit down”, she spits. “None of my opps may terrorise the city.”
Brooke’s assertive streak continues with ‘I Am Lola’, on which she reminds listeners that she’s ”Been that bitch / And I’m nonetheless that bitch.” As she explains: “‘I Am Lola’ is essential as a result of it was me telling everybody that I’m the one,” she says. “This [success] wasn’t a mistake. I didn’t get fortunate. I’m blessed for positive however I’ve been doing this for a very long time – this was my future.”
Elsewhere on ‘Dennis Daughter’, Brooke groups up with French Montana on the rapid-paced membership observe ‘Pit Cease’, and Bryson Tiller on ‘You’. Coi Leray and Nija, in the meantime, each help Brooke on ‘Don’t Get Me Began’. The aforementioned ‘Don’t Play With It’ remix additionally seems on the undertaking, however don’t get it twisted: ‘Dennis Daughter’ is all about Brooke, she reaffirms.
“The undertaking is extra of a continuation of my story than an introduction,” she says. “Whoever catches on, they catch on. Any physique of labor I put out is all the time gonna really feel like album high quality however this proper here’s a massive deal for me. It’s my first child.” Brooke, nonetheless, is already desirous about what she desires to launch subsequent. “I obtained this chapter down,” she says. “Now I’m like, ‘What else do I must work on inside myself? What else do I would like?’ Then I head again into the studio with that in thoughts.”
‘Dennis Daughter’ might include Brooke’s most revealing verses up to now, however when NME asks if there’s the rest she desires folks to learn about her, she provides yet one more factor. “I’m very tapped into my feelings. I’m not simply the lady from Brooklyn that’s able to stomp any person out along with her boots,” she says, laughing. “Generally, I simply desire a kiss on my brow.”
Lola Brooke’s EP ‘Dennis Daughter’ is out now through Arista Information
Hearken to Lola Brooke’s unique playlist to accompany The Cowl under on Spotify and right here on Apple Music
Author: Erica Campbell
Pictures: Sam Keeler
Styling: Naya Ashley
MUA: Niasia Boyd
Label: Arista Information