The Vancouver-to-Los Angeles rapper is resilient and unbothered on her debut, self-titled EP
Prado Monroe doesn’t give a fuck if you like her. She’s crass, she’s thoughtful, and she’s glamorous — spelled “G L A / M R O U S, yes.” The 22-year-old Vancouver resident’s macho-femme stylings are a product of her upbringing and a testament to her resilience as a Black, Indigenous, and queer female artist navigating North America’s music industry. Originally touted by critics as “different,” Prado leaned into the labels that made her stand out, but over time she’s realized that she can celebrate her multifaceted identity without having to pander to these aforementioned labels in her music and marketing. At the end of the day, Prado is a pop star creating “endurance anthems” to motivate artists to do “what they feel and what they want,” and she hopes to capture that philosophy in the form of her debut EP, Prado Monroe.
“I think the attitude behind it is just honest,” Prado says of her self-titled project. “My whole life you weren’t really given the chance to make whatever you want. They’re like, ‘Oh, you’re Indigenous, you’ve got to do Indigenous stuff,’ or, ‘If you do activism your songs should mean this or that,’ but I think that’s just missing the whole point.”
On the surface, Prado’s music is not indicative of the labels that grace her press releases. “Queer Indigenous Rapper” is a footnote on her EP rather than a headline, and she’s happy to keep it that way. Prado Monroe stands on its own as a collection of bad bitch anthems motivated more by flow than advocacy. But that isn’t to say that Prado’s identity is totally lost on the tracks.
Opener “STEPHEN” celebrates Indigenous resilience without compromising its pop methodology. One could easily sing along to the track’s outro chant of “Bad bitches never wait / Bad bitches never stay” without realizing that the titular “Stephen” refers to Stephen Harper, the former prime minister of Canada. Harper is known for ignoring the plights of missing and murdered Indigenous women, who are disproportionately affected by a homicide rate of almost six times that of any other Canadian women. Harper also famously said that the issue “isn’t really high on [the government’s] radar, to be honest.” It’s obvious that Harper doesn’t like Prado, but she doesn’t like him either, singing, “I don’t give a fuck if you like me, Stephen.” This line alone is an act of resistance supported by a whole song’s-worth of affirmations that Prado is That Bitch: an Indigenous woman who defied the odds.
While Prado confidently weaves tales of resilience and success across Prado Monroe, her real story faces far more hurdles than her lyrics might suggest. Prado believes that “female artists, femme-appearing artists, and really queer artists especially … deserve success in their own right” but “they have to put in that extra work, and it sucks because it’s just the climate that we’re in.” Despite writing, performing, and co-producing all of the tracks on her debut EP, Prado still watches as the industry “gives the fucking keys to the fucking city to any other random white dude that’s like, ‘I make rock music and I have a hit.'” Prado says that the themes of endurance that define her anthems stem from necessity: as a woman of color, she has to “keep delivering and keep up” just to catch a glimpse of the success she raps about. But rather than simply critiquing the imbalance of gender within the industry, Prado ensures that she is supporting women at every turn.
“I’ve given free Logic away like a motherfucker. I torrent everything,” Prado says, smiling. “So like, any girl that comes up to me like, ‘Oh I want to make music.’ I’m always like, ‘Fucking download this today. Go buy a USB mic for $35 and get to fucking work.’ That’s literally it! That’s all they’ve got to do to get started.”
This pro-femme, community-first mentality permeates all facets of Prado’s work. She makes an effort to work with “female and queer artists almost exclusively now” because she wants to prove just how talented and worthy of attention she and her contemporaries are. She’s even started signing her emails with “Gaslight, gatekeep, girlboss” to poke fun at the “boss baby grind” a lot of women have to engage with in the industry. Prado acknowledges that this gendered-imbalance is a longstanding tradition, and that it’s even harder to get recognition if you’re a female artist from Canada.
“I just think about all the women before me from here that no one fucking knows about,” Prado says from her hometown of Vancouver. “The only people they know about are the people who ran away — and I guess I ran away too [laughs].”
After “running away” to Los Angeles when she was 19, Prado began building a brand that would eventually lead to the creation of her most recent persona, Prado Monroe. This brand is an amalgamation of Prado’s inspirations: from Chief Keef to Fergie to Lana Del Ray. Prado is a rapper, a pop princess, and a (North) American sweetheart with a “trucker’s mouth.” She thrives on juxtaposition and wants her persona to represent that. “I want it to be kind of a play on how it’s very Americana, but for me it’s like, almost horror,” Prado says. Despite “Monroe” evoking 50s aesthetics, Prado never had a “picket white fence” lifestyle, and even after moving to Los Angeles she never tried to hide the fact that she grew up in Indigenous housing. Instead she flexes without taking herself too seriously; her humility comes through with her humour.
“GUCCI STORE” is a perfect example of how Prado can be polished and raw at the same time. The infectious hook has her buying up the entire Gucci store in classic braggadocious hip-hop behavior, but when tasked with proving just how glamorous she really is, she sings, “They said I was stupid / But bitch I can spell / G L A / M R O U S, yes” and flows so hard she misspells “glamorous” after all. A more insecure artist might quickly cover up this mistake with a second take, but Prado just laughs it off. To her, it’s kind of funny to release a song with such an ironic moment, but there is also power in flexing through her blunders. Who cares if she misspells “glamorous”? She knows just how glamorous she really is.
“I think a lot of artists starting out like, that’s your superpower: you have to pick all those narratives for yourself,” Prado says. In her debut EP, she has clearly chosen the narrative of someone outspoken but not preachy, someone successful but not ungrounded, and someone who stays true to herself and her heritage without being bogged down by labels. Prado Monroe is a multifaceted pop star who answers to no one.
“I tell everybody like, ‘Yeah I’m queer, I’m Indigenous, blah blah blah.’ Sure, put it as the fucking headline because I don’t want none of them motherfuckers that can’t deal with that to be in my vicinity whatsoever,” Prado says with pride. “I don’t give a fuck if you like me, Stephen! Purr. That’s it!”
Stream Prado Monroe below.