kei doesn’t care who sees her tantrums. Actually, she’d prefer it if you grabbed a seat and followed along with her fits. Look no further than the Boston rapper’s “made me” music video for a cautionary example.
First kei digs her fingers into heaps of birthday cake; then she uses those fists to pulverize the decapitated head of a life-size teddy bear while rapping “Bust your head / Concussion!” You could call it immature, or you could call it uninhibited. Either way, it’s best to move out of kei’s way when she comes swinging.
kei fires off barbed beats and bars for her new EP terrible twos, which dropped last week (May 30) to honor the rapper’s birthday. The new EP follows the same Crayola-colored path as her 2021 EP baby steps, which kei says she recorded “to reinvest myself back in creative things I enjoyed when I was younger — like music.” For terrible twos, she once again funnels her childlike energy into a series of sucker-punches, which throttle listeners with lines like “I’m concerned about your safety!”
“Because I was turning 22, and it was my second project following baby steps, I thought it would be really fun to play with this concept of ‘terrible twos,’” she tells Vanyaland. “As I developed the theme, I wanted it to look really different from what the actual songs sounded like, but still make sense in the context of my last drop, embodying the childlike energy of a toddler and sonically capturing that raw energy of throwing a tantrum. I was also inspired by artists like Rico Nasty, who I’ve seen unapologetically express themselves with their artistry and who can pivot seamlessly. I was hoping to do the same with this project, because I don’t want to be limited by people’s expectations or where they think I should take my sound.”
But kei doesn’t “kill every beat and act like it’s nothing” for the hell of it. She says that the vitriolic nature of her work also speaks to the creative process, which can feel like an endless mood swing in itself.
“I feel like creating can be temperamental for so many reasons,” she notes. “From dealing with my own personal expectations to just life experiences impacting my creative process, my day-to-day being an artist is so up and down. One minute you can be really excited about a new song you’re working on, the next you’re stressed out because you don’t have the resources to fully realize your vision. On top of that, I feel like balancing how people view you and how you view yourself is really hard. Like even when I get a ton of praise from the people around me, sometimes I still feel like I’m not doing enough.”
In retaliation, terrible twos‘ three tracks manage to do the most damage possible for seven minutes and seven seconds straight (including two surprisingly aggressive samples from The Powerpuff Girls). “You cannot keep me contained,” kei remarks on final song “s.t.o.o.p.e.d.” She’s unleashed her inner child — and if baby steps and terrible twos have shown us anything, it’s that this side of kei isn’t leaving the playground any time soon.
Tap in to terrible twos below.