Brisbane rapper Miss Blanks (Sian Vandermuelen) is often compared to Nicki Minaj but Missy Elliot is more on point: fine, filthy and also very funny. At gigs, Vandermuelen’s trademark call for women, trans and non-binary folk to come to the front is an overdue example of how inclusivity in music scenes can be fun not hectoring. Such is her sass and charisma.
Vandermuelen is all ego, all the time, chest-thumping ceaselessly about her skills on the mic. She uses minimal beats, throws in a classic Erik B & Rakim sample or two, and deals out some boy-band style R&B on the chorus of Worldwide Pussy.
It’s hard not to fist-pump in delight when she raps “I got haters to my left/Got haters to my right/I ain’t afraid to slap a hatin’ homie on sight”, because as a trans woman of colour, the stats and stories suggest that too much of Vandermuelen’s existence is in unwelcoming spaces. On stage and on record, at least, she runs the world. But is an earworm like “Skinny bitches in my zone, baby feed them” only body positive for women with meat on their bones? Or is she just righting the scales?
