Release Date: Nov 17, 2009
Genre(s): Dance, Rap
Record label: Downtown
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It’s easy to dismiss Kid Sister at this point. She hit the scene more than three years ago as a hip-hop wunderkind, and she was all boast and bravado. She moved on up from Chicago house parties with her brother, one half of the DJ duo Flosstradamus, to being a brief female sidekick to Kanye West. Soon enough, she was signed to Fool’s Gold, the label of West’s DJ A-Trak, storming the Internet with singles from her upcoming album, which was quickly gaining hype.
Reading the music press of the early 1970s can be an alienating experience for the noughties music fan. It's not really because tastes have changed in the intervening years, although they definitely have: you do boggle at little at the dreadful, joyless logic that allowed journalists to heap scoffy opprobrium on Abba or the Carpenters or Barry White, while behaving as if Jethro Tull's Aqualung represented a pivotal moment in 20th-century culture to rank alongside the 1910 post-impressionist exhibition. It's more the attitude of journalists to rock stars that beggars latterday belief.
Kanye West-approved Chicago rapper finally releases debut The first words we hear on Ultraviolet are, “Hi, I’m Kid Sister.” At this point, the introduction is warranted. It’s been two years since the Chicago-based rapper/singer made a splash with her Kanye West-assisted single “Pro Nails”—which, in Internet time, makes it feel like a relic on this long-delayed debut. Her next big moment came with a guest spot on “Beeper,” by The Count & Sinden, which appeared on an earlier, unreleased version of Ultraviolet but is missing here.
Will the next, real Female MC please stand up? Where is Missy Elliot these days? Somebody tell Lauryn Hill to stop pushing out babies in the name of Jah. Why is Lil Kim on Dancing With the Stars and not holed up in a studio? Somebody get Eve off of Dr. Dre’s Aftermath label so she can actually record an album again. The trials and tribulations of female rappers.
Like M.I.A. and Lady Sovereign before her, Chicago’s own Kid Sister (a.k.a. Melisa Young) has been no stranger to the pros and cons of blog hype and delayed release dates. After all, those kind of ancillary benefits come with the territory in the hipster version of credibility in this new millennium, blah, blah, blah.
Ultraviolet doesn't sound like an album nearly three years in the making, but that's what it is. Chicago party-rapper Kid Sister dropped the breezy nail-salon jam "Pro Nails" in spring 2007, and the song went viral when Kanye West showed up for a superstar cameo. Kid Sister's spent the intervening years recording a debut, scratching it, starting over, tinkering, and finally coming out with the product she really wanted to release.
It's been a rags-to-riches ride for Melisa Young, also known as Kid Sister. In a matter of three years, she went from selling baby clothing and being on the dole to rubbing elbows with Kanye West, Diplo, Estelle and A-Trak, who executive-produced Ultraviolet, her full-length debut. [rssbreak] The album has gone through its own rough ride. Originally titled Dream Date, it kept missing deadlines.
The Chicago rapper’s debut falls slightly short of its explosive potential. Natalie Shaw 2010 It's been a while since RnB, Chicago house, two-step and soul melding wunderkind Kid Sister first appeared on the dizzying Pro Nails, with Kanye West in tow. With a faded buzz and an upped ante, her debut album Ultraviolet nonetheless still proves a stand-out release, just partially for the wrong reasons.