Mic Check For Christina K: Fly Girl Rising

You can’t help but notice Christina K’s signature curly Afro, high cheekbones and funky sense of style at first glance. The dynamic beauty is the type of girl who can make pairing sneakers with an evening gown look fly. When she speaks, hints of her slight twang emerge as she says she’s from “Murrland,” and you instantly realize that this quintessential around-the-way-girl is at once down-to-Earth and out-of-this-world.

The twenty-something Washington DC-area native initially began working in the entertainment industry in public relations, marketing and event planning. However, pursuing music was a nagging ambition that she’s had since childhood, so she decided to quit her day job to focus on her dreams.

In 2007, she released the self-produced “I Got a Boyfriend,” which sampled Salt-n-Pepa’s “Push It.” The song featured her infectious repetitive hook as she chanted, “I got a boyfriend, I got a man/You chicks can’t get no man, unh unh!” in a rhyme-style reminiscent of the pioneering rap duo, and caught on to top 40 radio stations. As her popularity grew, she landed a licensing deal with MTV where she produced music for shows like Making the Band 4 and The Hills, has produced for Pitbull and the late Dolla, and got an honorable mention from DJ Green Lantern in XXL magazine as being a creative woman with good ideas. In fact, the Tupac sample you hear in Nas’ “Black President” was her idea, contrary to what the male-dominated industry would have you believe.

But CK is determined to get her props! That’s evident in the fact that she can go from flowing playfully over a disco beat, which can be noted in her recent single “Tonight”—currently in rotation on MTVU—to spitting more hardcore about her life growing up in Maryland, over a Biggie beat. And if that’s not enough, further evidence of her fly girl antics is on the horizon. Her mixtape titled Moonlight in Oz, will be released on Amalgam digital this summer but in the meantime, GangStarr Girl lets CK tell you what she’s all about.

You have an old school flavor, how did you get into hip-hop?

I always liked music and have been writing since I was about five. One time, when I was about six or seven, the ugly boy at school had kissed me and I was so mad that I cried because everybody was teasing me. I came home and wrote a song about him. I sat at one of those old school boomboxes and freestyled about him for two or three hours. And even when I wanted stuff for Christmas, I would always want a keyboard or something like that. Nobody ever taught me how to play [but] I would turn on the auto program and drum on there and just walk around rapping.

Being that you’re from the DC-area, are you into Go Go?

I’m into a little Go Go here and there. When I was younger, I was on my real Maryland/DC movement but when I started kicking it with a girl from Baltimore, we would ride around listening to other stuff. It’s like two different worlds, she put me on the Mobb Deep and stuff like that, so when I started listening to that Murda Muzik, I was like “I want my shit to sound like this.” I started listening to all the music that came from New York, and that’s when I said goodbye to Go Go.

DJ Green Lantern mentioned that he wanted to sign you in XXL magazine. Did you ever go through with the deal?

I didn’t go through with the deal because of the whole thing behind the “Black President” song. It was totally my concept for the song. I sent him the [Tupac] track and told him let’s sample this part between this second and everything like that. I had already recorded it and had it done. It was supposed to go on my mixtape but then he just emailed me saying we had to get me a new beat for the song because Nas took the song for his album. I didn’t sit there and make the beat [but] it was my concept. I found the acapella, sent it to him and told him exactly which second to sample but he ran with the idea. We recorded it and we got the lawyers going back and forth, negotiating the contract and then, the night before Obama got the official nomination to run against Hillary, I get a random email after I haven’t heard from him in weeks, about me needing a new beat.

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