Oops! Just hours after Ariana Grande, 25, dropped her new single “7 Rings”, she was slammed on Twitter on Jan. 18 by a rapper who accused the singer of copying the 2012 song, “Mine.” Princess Nokia, 26, rushed over to Twitter to call the “Thank U, Next” hitmaker out, and she heaped her criticism with a healthy dose of shade. The rapper filmed herself playing the song and added her reaction, saying, “Does that sound familiar to you? Because that sounds real familiar to me.” Nokia added, “Oh my God. Ain’t that the little song I made about brown women and their hair? Hmmm. Sounds about white.”
So, who is Princess Nokia? If you have no idea, don’t worry. Here are five facts about the rapper who quickly became a Twitter trend for slamming Ari.
1. Her real name is Destiny Nicole Frasqueri and she is a proud New Yorker. “New York is a living, breathing vessel of poetry, art, fashion, pain, tragedy, uniqueness, color, diversity, weirdness, poverty. Everything is fascinating for me,” she told i-D in a March 2017 article.
https://twitter.com/princessnokia/status/1086316612511322113
2. Princess Nokia’s life was struck by tragedy when her mom died of AIDS when the rapper was just 10. “I remember what she looked like, her voice, I remember her ashtray,” she told Vogue. “She was my best friend.” Nokia was also partly raised in foster care from the ages of 9 to 16.
3. “Mine” isn’t her only song. As fans of the rapper know she has a number of songs under her belt, including “Bart Simpson,” “Dragons” and “Versace Hottie.”
4. She considers herself an “Afro-Indigenous queer woman,” according to Vogue. She has Puerto Rican roots and also has Spanish, Irish and Italian heritage.
5. In her song “Mine” she celebrates black and brown women and their hair. In the lyrics, according to Genius, she praises Dominicans “who rock they weaves innocent,” “Boricua girls who rock yaki ponytails” and Africans “who braid, many hours spent.” As for the similarity between “Mine” and “7 Rings”? Well you’ll just have to take a listen to both and decide for yourself!