The Smallest Room
  • Menu

    Music
    Arts
    About
    Travel
    Teach

  • MUSIC
    • record reviews
    • LIVE REVIEWS
    • features
  • ARTS
  • About
  • Travel
  • Teach
0

Miss Blanks – Diary Of A Thotaholic

A review from my quarterly Guardian column 'Music You Missed', January 2018


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?


Share Tweet

Kate

You Might Also Like

  • LIVE REVIEWS

    Floors of Heaven underwater concert (Woolloomooloo Bay)

  • features

    The ‘Yolŋu surf rock’ of Yothu Yindi’s next generation

  • LIVE REVIEWS

    William Crighton (The Great Club)

Search

Twitter

Tweets by @smallestroom

Recent articles

  • A yarn with YIRRAMBOI Blak Critic Bryan Andy January 28, 2023
  • Dua Lipa – Qudos Bank Arena November 8, 2022
  • The Tasman, a Luxury Collection Hotel, Hobart September 6, 2022
  • Zen in the Arabian desert June 6, 2022
  • Floors of Heaven underwater concert (Woolloomooloo Bay) February 19, 2022
  • MUSIC
    • record reviews
    • LIVE REVIEWS
    • features
  • ARTS
  • About
  • Travel
  • Teach

My name is Kate Hennessy. I am a freelance arts and travel writer and music critic. I contribute to Guardian Australia, The Sydney Morning Herald/The Age, The Saturday Paper, The Australian, The Australian Financial Review, The Wire (UK), NME and more.

Latest posts

  • A yarn with YIRRAMBOI Blak Critic Bryan Andy

    January 28, 2023
  • Dua Lipa – Qudos Bank Arena

    November 8, 2022
  • The Tasman, a Luxury Collection Hotel, Hobart

    September 6, 2022
  • Zen in the Arabian desert

    June 6, 2022
  • Floors of Heaven underwater concert (Woolloomooloo Bay)

    February 19, 2022

Twitter

Tweets by @smallestroom

Search