It wasn’t long before Kilo graduated from controlling the stop and record functions on the board to working the mic with verbal athletics. “I started to get the hang of it and it just kind of blossomed from there,” she says. Music with a message Kilo’s lyrics pack a message that is as true-to-self as it is relevant. Avoiding hip hop cliches that glorify crime, money and street life, Kilo opts to educate the masses from a platform of individual empowerment and social movement. “I just want to explain who we are as a people,” she says. “I’m speaking from being an African- American, being a woman, being gay, and you know, just being a part of society.” Her personal identity hits a cross-section of minority groups, giving a voice to the struggles of the under-represented, the misunderstood and the historically oppressed. To carry the message beyond awareness and into action, her single “Lord Knows” plays like a mission statement - a track dense with cleverly crafted rallies of “justice for all” and cries for strength through unity. It’s a call to action, punctuated by her closing bars: I’m not the rst to say what we’ve been through / but the question still remains / What are we gon’ do? In the video, Kilo stands at the head of a crowd of neighborhood kids - a visual shout out to the future of her community - while her words construct a vision of progress through unity. “Positive inuence / no race, just a movement / we come together as people / united and equal / imagine how lethal a power / justice is feasible,” she raps with her back to the camera, facing the kids like a quarterback in a huddle. “I want my music to last, so it’s like, ‘How can I teach those around me?’” she explains. “Especially the kids in the video - they’re our future.”
Find your lane Mainstream hip hop isn’t exactly saturated with female LGBT rappers, and Kilo recognizes her identity as a denite strength. She credits her life experience and perseverance through adversity with cultivating the boldly authentic perspective she takes in her music. “My sexuality helps me - I’ve already been going against the grain my whole life,” she says. And she credits her roommate, the rest of Bloodline and her family with helping her to nd that focus, to “nd [her] lane, and attack it.” And her lane, although specic, resonates with universal positivity that leaves no one behind. “I don’t really make any negative music. I’m not falsifying who I am,” says Kilo. “I’ve always been me, and that’s who I’m going to continue to be.”
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