Princess Nokia brought high energy and a powerful message to Philly last week

I have been a Princess Nokia fan since my girlfriend showed me the body positive slapper Tomboy a few years ago. I was instantly mesmerized by not only her feminist lyrics but her "don’t mess with me" attitude.

This show was my first time going to the nightclub, Coda. I was honestly very impressed. It was very clean and the staff was super friendly and I had no issues getting in with my press pass. The venue itself is very stylish with an upstairs bar, perfect mood lighting and a nice disco chandelier to top it all off. The show itself was sold out which means around 650 people attended give or take. So, a pretty moderately sized crowd.

Photography by Nate Rogers

The opener, L’Rain, was one of the most strange and beautiful experiences I have ever been a part of at a show. The lead came out and proceeded to light a bundle of sage encouraging the crowd to take a seat before during performance.

I have never seen a room of people sit down at a show in a nightclub before and matched with the surreal element of the smoke and small of the sage being passed around the room really made for a nice environment. L’Rain consisted of a lead singer with a guitar accompanied by sax and bass players and a drummer. L’Rain enchanted the crowd with soft ambient music for a good for 45 minutes before Nokia’s DJ, Uniiqu3, came out to warm up the crowd for her friend.

L'Rain

Nokia hit the stage around 10:45 p.m. and immediately the club erupted in cheers while she proceeded to play the banger, Kitana off of her most recent project 1992 Deluxe. The Princess performed every song that everyone was there to hear including some covers of early 2000’s Emo songs which was met by a super positive feedback from the crowd.

Princess Nokia

Beyond the high energy and awesome dancing Princess Nokia performs for a reason.

She has a very strong message for all women in the world to be who they are and not to let anyone tell them otherwise. Hailing from New York, Nokia is a Puerto Rican “Bruja” who heavily embraces her heritage and encouraged the woman of color in the room to move their way to the front because they deserved to be there.

Nokia has been known to be almost militant with her beliefs especially shown in a viral video where she threw hot soup on a man yelling racial slurs on a subway in New York City.

The show was one of the best I have been to in 2018 so far and I am very excited to see what Princess Nokia has in store for the future. She is definitely a big artist to watch in 2018 and I can see her easily making her way up on the female rap podium next to more mainstream artists like Cardi B.