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February 03, 2021, 2:05pm EST
With Daisy rising on the Mainstream Top 40 Airplay chart, the London-based artist believes and is banking on songs about pleasure is more than an industry trend.
Sitting on the floor of the Los Angeles home where she’s been riding out the pandemic, her signature blue hair pulled back in a ponytail, Ashnikko is attempting to explain her sound. The 24-year-old, born Ashton Casey, has been called everything from pop to rap to rock to alternative but none seem right to her. The only label she wants to put on her music is “feel-good,” she says, smiling.
Indeed, the fury bubbles up on songs such as “Toxic”, a braggadocious rap kiss-off aimed squarely at social media trolls (“
What’s a sheep to a tiger?”), and the Kelis-sampling “Deal With It”, Ashnikko’s most “pop” single to date, on which she trades in a unfulfilling beau for self-confidence – and the guaranteed satisfaction of sex toys.
Elsewhere on the mixtape, the pain rears its inevitable, ugly head: Ashnikko licks her wounds after the implosion of a relationship on the acoustic guitar-driven “Good While It Lasted”, which sees her “taking responsibility for being an immature hothead”, and on the nu-metal-fueled Grimes collab, “Cry”, she rages and anguishes in equal measure in the wake of an ex-friend’s betrayal.
Sun 24 Jan 2021 08.00 EST
âIâm shy,â lies Ashnikko, AKA American singer-songwriter Ashton Casey, 24, towards the end of Slumber Party, a lascivious, Princess Nokia-assisted booty call about oral sex. Itâs one of a handful of playfully explicit bangers that make up the pop agitatorâs debut; the culmination of a blaze of hype â started on TikTok, natch â thatâs seen her hailed by everyone from Grimes to Miley Cyrus.
You can see why Cyrus likes her.
Demidevilâs unfiltered lyrics are underpinned by an innate pop sensibility, even when the songs careen between genres. So opener Daisy finds Ashnikko spitting âbeing a bitch is my kinkâ over woozy hip-hop, before the chorus juxtaposes the bravado with a fluttering earworm melody. The bouncy electro-pop of Deal With It, meanwhile, sugarcoats the pill as she comes for an ex: âI donât need a man, I need a rabbit,â she raps over a distant vibrator.
Ashnikko. Credit: Vasso Vu
Ashnikko has brought forward the release of her new mixtape ‘Demidevil’ – it will now arrive this Friday (January 15).
The release date change comes after physical copies of the mixtape were sent out to fans far in advance of the original release date.
“hey yall!! as u know, loads of my mixtapes were sent out more than a month before my desired release date,” she wrote on Instagram. “and i honestly don’t think it’s fair that you all don’t get to hear the music at the same time and enjoy it together…..
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“SOOO…I have made the decision to bring DEMIDEVIL forward and release it next Friday, January 15th!!!!!!! my pride and joy, the apple of my eye, something i’ve poured my heart and soul into, my baby DEMIDEVIL is out NEXT FRIDAY EEEEEEEEEEEEK LET’S PARTY !!!!!!!!”