In conversation with Ms. Boogie

Ms. Boogie, a Dominican-Colombian artist raised in East New York, is transforming hip-hop spaces beyond their traditional archetypes. Her sound is a symphony of grit and elegance, as she layers multifaceted textures upon familiar drill sequences, infusing the genre with a quality that is distinctly her own. An eloquent translator of her reality, Ms. Boogie is soft-spoken yet unafraid to tell the truth in all of its — at times uncomfortable — facets. Her melodious articulations don’t sugar-coat, but amplify the experiences of Black trans women in the current political climate. Everything from Ms. Boogie’s choice of lyrics, instrumentations, collaborators, and samples is directed at documentation — they are organic reflections of her existence brought together with the intention of never getting lost again. With her upcoming releases, we catch up with the artist to reflect on the evolution of her work, the role of language in mainstream spaces, her approach as an archivist, and the line between educating and not giving a fuck. 

Lovely to speak to you! How are you today?
I’m doing well. I’m happy, I’m alive. 

It’s been more than a year since The Breakdown, but it’s still such a groundbreaking work. Reflecting on it, where are you with it now?
When you release a work that’s so vulnerable, you don’t know if you’re supposed to heal or to just move on once it comes out. But honestly, a lot of those feelings from the album are still present. With the climate in the world, just emotionally, it still reflects on our times in a sometimes unfortunate way, but is also transparent enough for us to be able to listen to what’s going on in the world. It still feels like I’m fighting the same fight, which I’m happy to fight. At the beginning, my mission was to amplify voices like mine specifically. But at this point, I just feel like so many more people also need their voices amplified. It’s important to be specific, and I do make it very clear that I speak for Black trans women. But in times like these you can’t limit who finds refuge in your art.

I imagine it’s quite a hard balance to strike between creating for your closest communities, but to also make it inviting for others.
Yeah, when you write from such a specific place, you try not to alienate the listener.. The fight of the queer and/or trans Black person has existed in such a bubble. My biggest mission has been not to filter the language that is very specific to us. If anybody is curious about it, they would have to intentionally engage with us. 

I actually wanted to ask you about language! It’s something that really stood out to me in your work. It made me think of broader rap culture. I feel like the vernacular of queer, especially trans communities, is somehow perceived more controversial, meanwhile hip hop and rap have always been so explicit and graphic.
I feel the same way. I also listen to rap and hip hop, but I rarely hear my daily language in it. It’s complex. When we think about our ancestors, a lot of the time the language they used was designed to exclude certain people from understanding what they were communicating for self-preservation — this secrecy you needed to survive. So I’ve kind of leaned into the if you know, you know. And if you don’t know, you can show your interest and care by researching. Or you can just submit to the confusion and project that onto the things that you don’t understand. And I think that’s where the violence comes from. The not understanding is a big trigger for a lot of people because it almost feels like a threat to someone’s intelligence or ability to relate. But if you don’t ask, you’ll never know. I think that’s how language works. 

Absolutely! It’s also always the demographic that is used to being in control or more represented in the media who feels the most threatened. But then this language also becomes mainstream — we can see how so much of our slang today can be traced back to queer Black communities. It’s such a cycle of rejection followed by appropriation.
Exactly. Every time I hear a rapper use queer slang — specifically Black, trans, and gay lingo from the U.S — it’s always like, wow. Sometimes it’s even more specific, like slang rooted in New York, which is the Mecca for a lot of this terminology. Much of it parallels the ballroom community, which also has its roots in New York. There are many layers to it. But my peers and I are not just using language for expression — it’s also for protection. It helps us to communicate with each other and speak without our aggressors having the privilege of fully understanding us. For me, outside of art, using this colloquial language often comes down to safety.
To add to your thought — when I hear rappers using it, I first wonder: where did you get that from? Who exactly did you hear it from first? Your girlfriend’s stylist? Were you just on that side of Twitter? It makes you think about what a luxury it must be to engage with something from a distance and capitalise off it. Whereas in our case, we speak from a place of survival. And it’s not that queer artists don’t get any recognition, but it’s not on the level that our cis-hetero counterparts in rap can achieve. The second part to this is seeing whether they’re using it right. That’s always a knee-slapper, because sometimes it’s just like, that’s not how you say it… but I see where you were going with it. The other part of the picture is where people say, “Maybe we should be grateful it’s reaching the masses.” Maybe it’ll give us an opportunity to make money off of it or be safer. But that’s just not true. It’s hard to be living the actual experience and watch pieces of that experience flourish in the mainstream without the fundamental reality of our struggle and lack of safety changing. I was going to say just in America, but really… it’s everywhere in the world.

True, it’s spreading from America like cancer… But coming back to your work, I’d love to talk more about The Breakdown. I was also really impressed with its sonic production. How did you achieve such a level of musical texture?
For the production, my first intention was centering people like myself, queer Black and Latin people. I already trusted that the music would be great because it was coming from a place of honesty. And I don’t think honest work can ever really be bad. Sure, art critics might dissect it differently, but for me, it’s always about intention. I wasn’t worried about whether the music was good or not — I was focused on telling it from the most truthful place possible. That honesty is what inspired the textures and the sounds I chose. They’re the soundtrack of my surroundings. It was a priority not to make something overly polished, because that felt unrealistic — not just for me, socially, but sonically, aesthetically, and physically. I didn’t want to project that kind of perfection.
I wanted it to feel real — like hearing music from inside your house while a car drives by blasting something loud. That’s the kind of texture I’m used to receiving music through. A lot of the sounds we used were field recordings — my collaborators and I actually went out and captured sounds from the streets, the ocean, the train, the elevator. It was real-life documentation. And that’s a core value of The Breakdown: documenting this experience. Because I don’t know any Black trans women rappers I can look back on. I know many right now, but I don’t know any from before, even though I know they existed. So, documentation became essential to the sound. I think Dazed and Confused is the clearest example of that — where you hear the elevator, the background noises… 

This approach is so refreshing! The album is also so instrumentally rich, carrying a certain orchestral quality to it. What was the intention behind this choice?
I spent a lot of time passionately collecting those instrumentations. They weren’t samples or stock sounds. For example, on Aight Boom and Dazed and Confused, they were performed by a Black trans woman named Ahya Simone, who is a harpist based in Detroit. Those small nuances mean the world to me. I was choosing someone who had a specific story versus just looking for the nearest harpist in New York City. 

That’s beautiful. I love that ultimately everything on The Breakdown — or your artistry at large — converges to this ethos of documentation. Documenting this narrative that has been so intentionally suppressed and erased for centuries is already such a big act of rebellion. Within that, what would you like people to take away from your legacy, say 100 years from now?
I know that there was a version of me 100 years ago. It was a real experience. And that’s the biggest thing I want people to realise when they look back at work like mine, or specifically mine. It’s simply that this narrative existed. We share the same streets, the same environment, the same earth. To this day, there’s a lot of people who think that Black trans women just showed up a few years ago. Even our language has triggered people. A lot of people are under the impression that it was made up recently. And it’s like, no, you just didn’t care about it enough to research. It was suppressed through educational systems. This language to describe people like me wasn’t used in any cotexts. People didn’t find the need to. Educators didn’t find the urge to. And I just want to make sure that curse is broken. I want to make the language accessible and open.
I often go back into the archive as far as I possibly can to find references to prove that we’ve been here. I also specifically use language and colloquial terms that have also been here for ages. In rap culture, artists often get to create new words and new slang. And I feel like I don’t have the luxury to do that because it would further alienate me from the story I’m trying to tell, which involves trans women from before I was even born.

Hopefully we can get to a place where it doesn’t feel like luxury anymore… How is this approach shining through in your most recent works, like Loose Ties?
In Loose Ties, I sample a documentary about a Black trans woman [Mirror Mirror: Consuela Cosmetica ] living in the 80s in New York City. So when I’m promoting it, I’m directing people to go watch it. But I think the line of where I can relate to her stops at a very visible place. Her story is not comparable to mine. So in the future, I want people to remember and be able to tap into that reality for Black trans women who are coming into music after me. I need them to be able to just listen to not specifically me, but artists like myself in the way we love our Lil’ Kim, Foxy Brown, Nicki Minaj. I want us to be able to reference ourselves.  I’d like to think that if we use music as a tool to leave a fossil somewhere under the rubble and the mess, then eventually when someone digs deep enough, they will find that artefact of history, of Black trans history. 

And that can be so lifesaving.
Exactly! There’s still the whole generation of Black trans women who are under the impression that they were a version of themselves only in someone’s imagination. And it’s not true. I mean, I’ve gone as far back as I feel like I can go with the people who are publicly trans, but not everyone is visibly trans. Your dad could be trans and you don’t even know. It’s not always going to be on the outside or an aesthetic. Trans people exist in ways that you don’t notice, and might never notice.

This is so important to keep in mind! There are so many people across the world who just haven’t been exposed to a comprehensive language around being trans, which makes this documentation absolutely crucial.
At some point in my career I had to realise how I wanted to approach this archiving and documentation as the root of my practice. On the surface, I’m a rapper but I’m assuming the responsibility — in my very own way — to be a historian and an archivist.

Looking back on your growth since The Breakdown and now to Loose Ties, how have these many facets of your artistry evolved?
So many feelings are just the same. I think it is more a reflection of where we are in the world right now. But now, I feel freer. I’ve let go of the technical pressures that came with making, essentially, my debut album. I’m now not afraid to relinquish structure and cohesion. Now I kind of just speak, getting the narrative out, clear and focused. I like to call my songs sonic installations or collages. In The Breakdown, I wanted to be kind and compassionate to the people that I was educating and be sensitive — as sensitive as I want people to be with me. My fanbase isn’t only people like me. I wanted to be as expansive as possible and mindful of people’s ignorance, which I don’t see as a slur or an insult. I wanted to be mindful of those who were just learning about my existence. But now I don’t really give a fuck. I want to be less ambiguous, to rely on metaphors less. I don’t want my message to be cryptic anymore.
Although The Breakdown was still very in your face, I think because I was so focused on packaging a story cohesively, I had delicate gloves on. Now I’m approaching everything with raw materials, my bare hands, no helmet, fully in my nudity. And that’s what Loose Ties was really about. Even in the artwork, there’s no hair, no glamour, no nothing.

It sounds like a very considerate approach — you treat people who are ignorant in the same respectful way that you’d like to be treated had you been ignorant. Did it maybe feel like this respect and kindness were not reciprocated in how The Breakdown was received?
It’s my first time hearing it in context, but yeah, that is exactly how I feel. I was trying my best to be an educator, which is not everyone’s responsibility. It’s the title as well. The breakdown is the simplification of an equation — you have to break down things in variables to get to an answer or an understanding. It represented walking people through each step, each experience, as many as I could in one album. Now that this introduction course is done, it’s like, I’m so sorry if you feel like I’m not explaining something as softly as you’d like me to. Even in Loose Ties, I bring up Muslim cis men and how I relate to them, reflecting on how they engage with transness and queerness. I didn’t want to offend or exclude myself from a larger conversation. I’ve also had this fear of becoming the person that oppresses you. I don’t want to be as violent to you as you are to me. But I care less now. So when I brought up Muslim men in that song, it’s just like, I’m so sorry that this is jarring. But I can’t help but to express something that is in my journal. When I engage with men who are extreme in their religion, this always comes up — showing how holy they are, but also how lustful they are of me. Sometimes it feels like it’s not fair that they get to walk so freely in that contradiction. The things they want to do to me don’t abide by the things they practise.

You’re just documenting your experience — it’s not indeed to offend, it’s just factual recollections. If anything, it should be embarrassing for them. And I guess that’s why people may have a negative reaction to that — they recognise it’s true.
Absolutely. I also make sure that I’m taking pieces and bits from the stories of women like me before I release something. I call my siblings. I call my friends who identify as Black trans women and we compare notes. 10 out of 10 times they are identical. In the end, it’s not really coincidence, it’s just how life goes.

I feel like there’s also so much pressure put on the oppressed to fight back or educate people in a particular way. So many stories get dismissed because they’re told too aggressively, or too emotionally, or too radically.
But in reality, we can see that no matter how gentle you are, it’s not always going to work. It’s being put in the position of an educator when I know for a fact that this information already exists. So when men ask questions or theorise about my identity, I’m like, there’s a song for you on this album. Please go listen to song number five on this. This story is out here! Why are you forcing us to relive these experiences or have to talk about them? If you care, you can Google.

Literally! The entitlement to your time and explanation is insane… Anyway, they’re not really worth our time. I’d love to know more about what’s on the horizon for you currently in terms of music?
Right now, I’m in a very free space creatively. I’m not signed to a label, so I don’t have too many obligations. I’m enjoying the luxury of being able to release music whenever I like in whatever method or packaging that feels natural to me. The next single that I’m releasing is in April, and the working title is I Know. It explores this conversation where I’m aware of how I’m perceived on the outside. Aesthetically, my beauty, my transness, my whatever you see when you see me. When it comes to cis hetero men specifically,  I know that you see these physical things, but what about the rest of what I have to offer as a human? What about my intellect? My attitude, my family? What about my position in the world? The song explores life beyond what people can see when they first see me. 

Can’t wait to hear it! And on a final note, any dreams, hopes, and aspirations you can share?
What a question. Honestly, just safety. I dream of feeling safe in as many environments as I can. There’s so much more to wonder about when thinking about how people perceive you. I think we all sometimes save judgement. But now, that plot has thickened for me. I think more often about what people are thinking about me. And it does make me uncomfortable. The biggest response to that is fuck what people think, they don’t pay your bills. But I think now more than ever they are showing to have more influence on my life than I thought someone ever would because of my identity. Besides that, I’m just excited to release more work and maybe tour again. I just hope to get back to a space where I’m able to navigate the world and spread my story and it not be seen as a threat to humanity or an agenda.

Ahhh, my favourite phrase. The trans agenda.
I’m like, wait, what does it say? What does the agenda say? Like, what are we doing next?