Brooke Candy

Genre-blurring American singer and rapper Brooke Candy emerged in the early 2010s, shifting fluidly across hip-hop and pop while drawing from a broad spectrum of sounds. Starting out as a hardcore rapper, she gradually folded in elements of electronic music, rock, and pop, aligning herself with figures such as Iggy Azalea, K.-Flay, Charli XCX, and Grimes. Although she scored a modest hit via the 2017 Sia collaboration “Living Out Loud,” Candy soon abandoned that overt pop approach and instead heightened the intensity on the punk-tinged 2018 tracks “War,” “My Sex,” and “Nuts.” Following a period of label shifts and delays, she finally released her first full-length project, Sexorcism, in 2019.

Raised in the greater Los Angeles area, Candy cultivated an early passion for fashion, music, and posting her creative expressions across social platforms. Her recording career opened with the flamboyantly stylized late-2012 video for “Das Me,” yet she had already gained notice through a cameo in Grimes’ clip for the hit single “Genesis.” She steadily built a devoted underground audience with hyper-sexual, explicitly charged rap tracks delivered through vividly colored visuals, citing ’90s rapper Lil’ Kim and her own experience working as a stripper as key influences on her unfiltered style.

Candy appeared on Charli XCX’s 2012 single “Cloud Aura,” then issued the five-track Opulence EP in 2014. The following year brought the single “Rubber Band Stacks,” which signaled a turn toward pop. She followed with “Happy Days,” “Nasty,” and “Changes,” the last featuring Jack Antonoff of Fun. and Bleachers.

Plans for a 2017 debut album titled Daddy Issues, anchored by the Sia-assisted “Living Out Loud,” were ultimately scrapped, prompting Candy to revert to her earlier hardcore, hip-hop-driven sound. Over the ensuing years she issued singles that incorporated rock on “War,” Peaches-style electro on “My Sex,” and experimental electronics on “Oomph.” In summer 2019 she confirmed that her long-awaited official debut, Sexorcism, would arrive that year; the project featured the explicitly charged “XXXTC” with Charli XCX and Maliibu Miitch alongside contributions from Boys Noize, Rico Nasty, Iggy Azalea, and additional collaborators.