This project was symbolic, meaning if I never put out anything else again and telling this story in my own words kills me, at least it’s going to kill everyone else in this bitch too. My thing has always been trying to be open and share, but that literally is what leads to people taking shit and using it against you. They look at you as a product or an entity, and they don’t really see you as a person. There’s a honeymoon phase when you become this new artist that people love, where you feel understood, loved, and accepted, then the tides turn against you. In the intro, it’s “Now that you gouged out of my eyes, I can’t make out no prize, ain’t no point but to pull down the pillars.” At a certain point, I feel like I lost a lot of steam and understanding. Tell me about the line on the album where you reference pillars being pulled down like Samson. Haim, Brittany Howard, Chika to Play Pandora's Countdown to Grammys Event Here, she details her album, her psychological journey, and why she has to be so unapologetic. The incident was both a distraction and her essence Chika is smart, witty, creative, and admittedly mentally ill - and learning to cope as a young adult. Then, it turned out that the child in question is T.I.’s granddaughter, so the discourse continued for what felt longer than your average main-character-commotion. to call you a stupid bitch.” Many people responded with horror, anger, and their own venom. Her rant started like this: “To the lady next to me who thought it would be a good idea to buy yourself and your twin infants first class seats on a red-eye flight, who just woke me up by bringing your screaming bastard to OUR seats to soothe her, I just bought $34 Wi-Fi at 4 a.m. Last month, she caught the internet’s ire for venting venomously - and some might say humorously - about being unable to sleep on a cross-country flight due to a crying child. She can be irate and incessant on Twitter, sometimes in those spells of mania. Chika is undeniably talented but also has been openly troubled. It was complete with a seven-person ensemble of musicians, one playing a Peruvian cajón, and is one of the popular platform’s most special from a newer and bubbling act. I’ve alternated between following and unfollowing Chika on Twitter since her immaculate 2020 Tiny Desk performance of songs from her first major label EP, Industry Games. She tells me she was diagnosed with bipolar II disorder a year ago, but says her providers now think she may have borderline personality disorder they’re figuring it out together. Specifically, that meant bouts of mania and suicidality, public outbursts, subsequent shaming, and even allegedly having her completed album stolen by its lead producer. She’s been through hell and high water to get here. “I wanted to tell my story based on Samson because there’s been a lot of pitfalls things that have publicly been about me that would look like a loss.” The precision and intention Chika put into this album is clear. “I think that my strength has always been my vulnerability, but at the same time, it’s always been my weakness because that’s the thing that’s weaponized the most against me,” she says, seeing herself in Samson, the strong man who lost everything in a moment of softness. He uses it to pull down the pillars of the building he was chained to, killing everyone inside - including himself. After much torment, Samson pleads with God to be forgiven and regranted his strength. In turn, that shit is promptly chopped, and he’s enslaved. His strength is in his hair, he reveals God warned him never to have it cut. In the Bible, Samson’s enemies sap his superhuman strength by sending a seductive decoy, Delilah, who learns his weakness during “pillow talk,” as Chika explains it. Snoop Dogg, Freddie Gibbs, and Stevie Wonder also help her draw parallels between herself and the biblical character the album is named for, a demi-god anointed by the Big Guy himself. Her debut album, Samson, is reflective, unguarded, and triumphant, a hip-hop hero’s journey complete with an intro from Lin-Manuel Miranda (a huge look for Chika as a former theater kid) and a series of emotional reprises. Things are, in fact, looking up for Chika, the 26-year-old rapper who’s made a name for herself as a complex rhymer and what some might call a chronic oversharer - the latter sometimes to her detriment. “Sorry, should I look up?” she asks the makeup artist. She’s playful, animated, and occasionally firm as she talks to me via Zoom through a laptop angled at her chair. Even as the women buzz around her, preparing her for the photoshoot accompanying this interview, she’s trying to keep an eye on me. It’s nearly two weeks until Chika’s debut album drops, and two stylists - one for her locs and one for her makeup - are hovering around her near the door of a New York City hotel room.
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