pop •
Blac Chyna is the latest — but not greatest — ex-stripper to try pivoting to a rap career
She’s putting out an album
by Katie Way
Surprise! Blac Chyna is making music now, and from the preview TMZ obtained, it doesn't seem like it's gonna be good.
The reality star (?) breathily implores listeners to "pop that pussy like a pistol" on the hook for an unnamed song produced by the same artist who made her ex Tyga famous, which is not a great sign either.
This might seem like a desperate ploy for Chyna to stay in the spotlight after her TV show with Rob Kardashian was cancelled, which it probably totally is.
But the transition from stripper to rapper is surprisingly common, and a bunch of women have made it — with varying degrees of success, of course.
The most obvious example of a female rapper who doesn't dance now but instead makes money moves is Cardi B, who has so thoroughly knocked it out of the park career-wise that I've cried thinking about it.
Cardi B first gained traction on social media, where her hilarious videos and dedication to the Church of Hoeism earned her a massive following. From there, she was featured on the sixth and seventh seasons of Love & Hip Hop: New York before leaving the show to focus on her rap career.
Then, this summer, Cardi's first single for Atlantic Records, Bodak Yellow, topped the Billboard charts for a record-breaking amount of time.
Bodak Yellow, like much of her other music, directly references Cardi's past as a stripper. It has always been part of her brand, and the fact that she has been the architect of much of her own success has made Cardi almost universally beloved.
Many of the prominent female rappers of the late 90s and early 2000s, like Eve and Trina, also spent time working as strippers before they got their big break in the rap game.
But other strippers who tried their hand at rapping haven't met with quite the same level of success.
Feminist queen and 21 Savage babysitter Amber Rose dropped verse on a song with her ex-husband Wiz Khalifa and Rick Ross on one of Wiz's mixtapes, and it's pretty shitty. "Money… clothes… cars…" Rose says on the song's hook, which sounds like someone making an argument about how shitty rap music is now.
And then… there's Tila Tequila, former MySpace queen and current Nazi. Tila Tequila's antics on and off the pole eventually earned her a reality dating show, but couldn't quite launch her music career.
Despite the fact that her first single, "I Love U," is a crazy bitch ANTHEM, Tila never met with musical success, despite releasing two albums: "Sex" in 2007, and "Welcome to the Darkside" in 2010.
Blac Chyna apparently has an album of her own in the works. No word on whether new beau Playboi Carti is gonna make an appearance, but Yo Gotti, Jeremih and Swae Lee are all attached to the project according to TMZ.
Will it be good? Probably not. Will I listen to it anyway? Yeah. I didn't even have to do that much research for this article. I support the stripper-to-rapper career transition, and maybe you should too.