Pittsburgh drag queen Moon Baby (aka Sam Perry) has released the second single from upcoming EP Barbara, a cathartic song that stands up against unfit leadership. Moon Baby has been making waves with her off-kilter pop in the last few years – she collaborated with Wise Blood to produce the 2014 EP Urallpoor.us and the 2016 EP Hollywood Killed Tara Reid. The two have come back together for this fierce track that so perfectly expresses the frustration and anger that so many of us are feeling.
Moon sheds her textured soulful melodies to put out this war cry in a wry, casual rap that builds into a holler. Enveloped in distortion, her voice's usual grit is amplified to match that of her words. A water-drop beat underlies a fog-horn-like synth that, as do the vocals, grows darker and more aggressive to create the perfect vessel to convey sentiments like "If you come into my city I'ma fuck you up/Cause boys like you hurt girls like me". Moon has even developed an art project surrounding this release, in which sand-filled cereal boxes like the one in the single art (with a bloody golf ball as the toy prize inside) will be distributed across Pittsburgh grocery stores.
In a recent interview with The Huffington Post, Moon explains the need to resort to aggression: "It’s difficult to choose compassion when lives are threatened and gunned down, and I think that’s why I’m so angry." I think anger is a reasonable response to what is happening as long as it's re-shaped into something positive, and Moon is an exemplar of how to do that. "MaraLago" is clever, infectious, and extremely well crafted, making it perfect for the well-needed frequent relief of repeated listens.
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