Audri Nix is the Puerto Rican rapper doing it for the Spanish speaking females
"This is about embracing my roots, embracing my language."
[A]udri Nix is a rapper working out of Puerto Rico. Her sound selects your preferred elements from rap and R&B subgenres -Glossy 90s R&B production on “Contigo”, rattling hi-hats on her latest work, “Mas”, spacious electronic beats on her remix of US future R&B duo 18+’s monumental hit “Crow”. Over these tracks, Audri spits in Spanish, a linguistic decision that the artist describes as her way of honoring the rich and overlooked cultural history of the Spanish speaking world.
At a time when the marginalisation and alienation of Spanish speakers has become major Government policy thanks to Donald Trump’s wall and when Puerto Rico is at a critical point in its history, Audri’s plans to take her sound global have taken on a importance that goes beyond music: “As for being political, I have to be in moments like this,” she explains “There are so many female rappers but where is the Puerto Rican one, speaking in Spanish, doing it for the Puerto Rican females?”
Hi Audri, tell us about your early influences? What were you listening to when you starting making music?
Back then I was listening to a lot of Biggie Smalls and a lot of Lauryn Hill, but I’ve always had a mix of music on my phone or my iPod or whatever. People sometimes imagine I’d be into weird, underground artists but I enjoy everything. In those days I was listening to a lot of reggae as well, and electro music – Justice and Crystal Castles for example and then of course lots of old school hip-hop.
"Spanish speaking cultures are so rich and important. For me it is an honor to be in the Spanish speaking world. There is so much history behind it, so this is about embracing my roots, embracing my language."
Was hip-hop a major part of your life growing up?
Here in Puerto Rico hip-hop is not a mainstream thing like it is in the United States. In the US its very culturally accepted and it’s on the radio and you can access it much more easily. In Puerto Rico it’s not like that. For you to find new hip-hop you need to really do your research. When I was 16 or 17 years old, hip-hop wasn’t that present in the media in Puerto Rico and I didn’t have much access to the internet and so I found all the music that I now love at a very late age. I was so mad because i was like, “Fuck. How did I not hear this before?”
I would have loved to know more music a lot earlier than I did. I would loved to have lived through it and with it. But I was too young and those sounds weren’t really around.
Did that make it a big step for you to define yourself as a hip-hop artist and say that’s what you wanted to do?
Yes, it really was. It was a really scary thing. When I first started doing music in my room I got a computer and I was downloading programs, I remember not thinking about anybody at all. I wasn’t thinking, “What is Puerto Rico listening to?”, I was just confident that if I did this with my heart the people would accept it and enjoy it. Then I got more into it and I started to realise that the country was not as open as I thought to different talents, especially a woman recording hip-hop. When I tell people what I do the reaction is still, “What?!”
"When I see artists blowing up and not saying anything about Puerto Rico losing healthcare, Puerto Rico losing public education, that’s sad and so embarrassing. We put you there. And you won’t use your voice to help us."
Talk to us about your choice to rap in Spanish, has it made it hard for you to break into the hip-hop mainstream? Does it automatically make your music a political statement?
When I first started making music I said to myself that I wanted to do something universal. I wanted to do something that even if you couldn’t understand what I was saying, you could dance to it and you could enjoy it because of the beat and the way I sing. I wanted to prove that it would work.
My second song ever was huge in the UK and not in Puerto Rico and not in Mexico or not in the United States. I did a remix for this band called 18+ and they’re huge in the UK. They heard the song and they put it on vinyl and it got over 200,000 plays on Soundcloud and thousands more on Spotify. That’s when I realized that I had proved that no matter the language, no matter the borders or boundaries you can break through. It’s not about language, it’s about the sound, about how it feels. I get so many people saying, “I don’t know what she’s saying but I love how she spits” that’s so satisfying to me.
You recently spoke out about the profiling on Spanish speakers in the US, is the marginalization of Spanish speakers a topic that impacts you a lot?
It doesn’t really change anything for me. I think that Spanish speaking cultures are so rich and important. For me it is an honor to be in the Spanish speaking world. There is so much history behind it, so this is about embracing my roots, embracing my language. I rapped in English when I started out because everything that I listened to was in English. And then someone said to me, “no you have to do it in Spanish”. They were right. There are so many female rappers but where is the Puerto Rican one, speaking in Spanish, doing it for the Puerto Rican females? There was no one.
As for being political, I have to be in moments like this, Puerto Rico is going through one of the hardest moments in its history. There are protests, confrontations with the police. But I’ve seen so many Puerto Rican artists right now dominating the industry and dominating the awards and not saying a word for the country.
I don’t just aim to give a voice to myself, I aim to give a voice to the people who need to be heard. When I see artists blowing up and not saying anything about Puerto Rico losing healthcare, Puerto Rico losing public education, that’s sad and so embarrassing. We put you there. And you won’t use your voice to help us.
Can you tell us about your new video “Mas”?
I was super excited about as it’s the first chance i’ve had to show people what I can do visually. I’ve always been driven by visuals so I felt under a lot of pressure to do this right. When I created this video I said I wanted something simple and aesthetically pleasing. We didn’t need fancy stuff, didn’t need a lot of elements, just an aesthetic. We wanted an industrial feel to it so we took it to the top floor of parking lot, lots of concrete, simple colors.
It’s me singing with two girls, each of them representing the split sides of my personality – one is gold, the other is darkness. The video is the starting point for my next project, an EP called La Niña de Oro, which translates as “The Golden Girl”. In the new project everything you see will be gold. Even my name comes from the symbol for gold in the periodic table, “Au”.
Follow Audri on Instagram here.