DO YOU WANT A SLICE OF HER PEACH?
Influences:
- Madonna, Peaches, Miss Kittin, Lady Gaga, Raffaella Carrà, Jo Squillo
M¥SS KETA is an Italian rapper and singer, famous for her provocative songs that tell tales of sex, drugs, decadence and nightlife, and for always hiding her identity under large sunglasses and face masks. She is actually a project born from the minds of the Milan-based collective Motel Forlanini, originally aiming to represent the city's urban culture, its nightlife scene, and its excesses. She made her debut in 2013 with the single "MILANO SUSHI & COCA".
A fictional autobiography of the character, UNA DONNA CHE CONTA (sharing the title of one of her most famous tracks), was released in 2018. Across the years, she also collaborated with other artists including Gabry Ponte, Mahmood and Katya.
DISCOGRAPHY:
- L'ANGELO DALL'OCCHIALE DA SERA: COL CUORE IN GOLAnote (2016, singles collection)
- CARPACCIO GHIACCIATOnote (2017, EP)
- UNA VITA IN CAPSLOCKnote (2018)
- PAPRIKA (2019)
- IL CIELO NON È UN LIMITEnote (2020, EP)
- CLUB TOPPERIAnote (2022)
A WOMAN WHO (ONE, TWO) A WOMAN WHO TROPES:
- Anthropomorphic Personification: Of the Milan nightlife scene.
- Caps Lock: All over the place in her name and the titles of her discography. Her debut album is titled "A LIFE IN CAPS LOCK", in case it wasn't clear!
- Concept Album:
- UNA VITA IN CAPSLOCK tells a metaphorical descent into Hell where the demons are modern social issues and psychological problems.
- CLUB TOPPERIA is about the eponymous place, a nightclub outside the space-time continuum which reflects the human soul, owned at a metaphysical level by M¥SS KETA herself.
- Genre Mashup: Her general output falls between pop, hip hop, and electronica, but there's also influences from punk, riot grrrl, trap, techno, house, and electroclash, as well as extensive sampling of easy-listening pop music from the '60s and '70s.
- Godiva Hair: In the video for "PAZZESKA", the M¥SS is topless with her skin entirely painted red, and her locks are strategically placed over her breasts.
- Gratuitous English: Random English words and expressions are pretty common in her lyrics (Truth in Television as it happens often among the people of Milan). For example, the album title CLUB TOPPERIA contains a made-up word that mashes the English word "top" with the suffix "-eria" ("-ness", sort of), for an overall meaning of "topness", "the bomb", and so on.
- Jeanne d'Archétype: "GIOVANNA HARDCORE" reimagines the historical heroine as a raver, metaphorically "lighting up the stage" to parallel Joan's execution by burning. The title of the song is a pun between "Giovanna d'Arco" (Joan of Arc's name in Italian) and "hardcore", specifically referring to Hardcore Techno.
- Kayfabe Music: The identity of the actual singer behind the sunglasses and the mask is unknown. The only known thing is that she hails from Milan, since this is a collective project meant to represent the city's nightlife and excesses among other things.
- Lucky Charms Title: The Y in "MYSS" is consistently stylised with a Yen sign (¥).
- Multilingual Song: The remix of Katya's song "Ravioli", while mostly sung in Italian, has the M¥SS say a couple of lines in Russian and in the Neapolitan dialect, as well.
- Pun: "UNA DONNA CHE CONTA" means "a woman who counts", where "to count" is used both in the meaning of "to matter, to be important" and the literal one of "to count numbers", which is exactly what the M¥SS does during the hook of the song. Even more evident in the music video, where the LED visor she's wearing is constantly scrolling through numbers.Una donna che (uno, due)note
Una donna che contanote
Una bionda che (tre, quattro)note
Una bionda che abbondanote - Titled After the Song: "MILANO SUSHI & COCA" ("Milan, Sushi & Coke") comes from a lyric of the 2008 song "Sushi & Coca" by Italian indie rock band Marta sui Tubi.
- Xtreme Kool Letterz:
- It's not "Miss Keta", it's "MYSS", with a Y.
- Then there's the song "PAZZESKA" ("Krazy").
