Ready for the heat? Mykki Blanco and Kari Faux bring the ghosts of Y2K all the way into the 21st century on their new track Summer Fling which was inspired by the millennium musical production of Missy Elliot and Timbaland.

“I wanted Summer Fling to feel like a song I could have heard at my middle school dance, maybe it’s because those were the years in which I was coming of age,” Mykki reveals.

“Y2K aesthetics still influence me heavily at some point in the creation of my songs. I always feel like the Y2K vibe haunts its way into the room and makes its presence felt on my records. Summer Fling is essentially about ghosting someone, it’s a playful song about the weird ups and downs of dating. I loved writing this song and it got even better when I recruited rapper and vocalist Kari Faux to be on the track. Kari’s delivery is slick and charged up, she takes no prisoners with her bars. She adds a layer of bravado and feminine mystique to the song. In addition to her verse that she wrote, she also contributed to the writing of the hook.”

Summer Fling is the latest single ahead of Mykki’s highly awaited mini-album, Broken Hearts & Beauty Sleep, which will be released on Transgressive Records on June 18, 2021, via all DSPs. the physical formats will be available on October 1, 2021. It marks Blanco’s first official release in nearly five years since their debut full-length Mykki album.

It’s been just over a decade since the moniker ‘Mykki Blanco’ was created – first as a video art project portraying a teenage female character (inspired by Lil Kim’s ‘Kimmy Blanco’ alter ego) posting vlogs and raps on social media, but it inevitably evolved into a vehicle of self-discovery in the artist’s journey of forming their personal self-identity.

They have pushed hip-hop to some of its most untethered bounds, melding noise and experimental elements with club and trap sounds, whilst also forging a uniquely subversive path within a genre historically entangled in a problematic ideological web of misogyny, homophobia, and transphobia. And while Blanco has been widely recognized as leading the charge as a pioneering trailblazer in the so-called ‘queer rap’ sub-genre, the music of this forthcoming new chapter of their career represents such significant musical evolution toward eradicating the confines of genre categories and mashing the previous perception of the ceiling of their potential reach.

Mykki’s desire to elevate their artistry provided the lifeblood for Broken Hearts & Beauty Sleep. To that end, the unique partnership they formed with producer FaltyDL – one that has been continuous since they first found themselves collaborating in 2018 – was instrumental in the creative process surrounding the mini-album. With Blanco penning the majority of the lyrics, FaltyDL produced nearly all the music. Samples became a thing of the past, and, in their place, original sounds and layers would prevail.

Creative energy was also found with the boldfaced names that contributed to the making of Broken Hearts & Beauty Sleep including It’s Not My Choice which features Blood Orange. Two of the LP’s tracks feature lyrical collaborations – Big Freedia contributed to That’s Folks and Summer Fling was co-written by Kari Faux. All of these collaborations are as organic as they come with each guest being a genuine fan, if not friend or even family, of Blanco. Collectively they add unique flourishes, but the spirit of the mini-album is all their own.

Blanco’s evolution and road to Broken Hearts & Beauty Sleep reflects an artist who has never been more in touch with their creative impulses and never more ready to bask in the magic of their own creativity.

“For me, I am one of those artists who many would say has taken the longer road to get to where I am now, but it’s that journey which has been the reward because the journey really has been my life; the career has just been the outer shell to the deeper things that I’ve experienced, and I can only be here now because of this journey.”

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