Nobody's Playmate Kid Sister is a Serious Contender

Nobody's Playmate

Kid Sister is a Serious Contender

Written by: Ryan Crosby | Photography by: Don Flood

“No spaces. No space to breathe. It’s like an aerobics class,” explains the larger-than-life Melisa Young, aka Kid Sister, about the energetic music on her highly anticipated debut, Ultraviolet. “My life is an aerobics class!”

She is just a month into officially having a record out, and her life is radically different than it was just two years ago, when she was hawking baby clothes by day and bartending at a reggae bar at night. “You gotta be here, here, here and here, can you do that? And I’m like, ‘Yes I can!’” says Young, still jubilant after cross-country jaunts, a performance on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon and record release parties. “So it’s been pretty nonstop, but I like it!”

The dramatic life change came with the release of “Pro Nails,” the bouncy southern-fried hit that featured a verse and video appearance from fellow Chi-town native Kanye West. “I had already done the song and it was cut — and we eventually released it. It was right after Justice won the MTV Europe Music Awards and Kanye rushed the stage the first time.” This is pertinent, since Kanye’s DJ, A-Trak, also happens to be the executive producer of Ultraviolet. “So all the French guys are our friends and we’re also cool with Kanye. So it was awkward being in the middle. Soon after, A-Trak was playing him all kinds of stuff, my song was among them, and Kanye just got on the song. That’s how you make a hit record, folks,” Young is quick to joke.

So a hit single is followed immediately by a hit record and life is good? Not exactly the case, since one version of the album was already shelved and has changed names multiple times. “The first version of the record kind of sucked and I will be the first person to say that. We just had to go back and sharpen our focus,” she says, streamlining it to better represent the fusion of electronic music with hip-hop that Kid Sister desired. “We tried to put together a record that would sound not like … a pile of crap!”

The album is essentially devoid of mid-tempo tracks, sticking to a strict diet of hipster-friendly electro beats and her signature retro-rap style, and stays nice and slim, clocking in around 37 minutes. And she’s proud of it now. “If you were wondering what’s going on in music right now, if you were wondering what this new movement is, well, let me hand you this,” she says. “Here’s my record.”

Ultraviolet starts with the anthemic “Right Hand Hi,” a tempo-shifting house track that combines a spacey four-on-the-floor beat with Kid Sister’s deft vocal skills, which often sound like a modern version of female rap luminaries MC Lyte and J.J. Fad. The album features additional cameos from newcomer Estelle on “Step” and Gnarls Barkley’s Cee-Lo on “Daydreaming,” a song Young says is her personal fave. “The songs are my children, but we all have our favorites,” she admits. “Parents, you know you like some kids better than the others, ’cause you know one of those kids is bad!”

Her influences from growing up in Chicago shine throughout the recording, especially on “Switchboard,” a collaboration with local juke champion DJ Gant-Man. Kid Sister seems intent on bringing juke to the masses, and references the regional musical phenomenon all over the record. “Juke is a genre, but it’s also a dance, and footwork is also a kind of dance you can do to juke music. It started between ’92 and ’94, and we called it booty house or ghetto house.” She quickly runs through some of the genre’s hypersexual hooks from the past, then says, “All these songs were coming out that were super-dirty and totally inappropriate for my age. I was, like, 12!” Definitely sounds like a Kid Sister.