With the recent surge of strong female rappers, Asian Da Brat has stood out as one of the top forces in the game. Formerly known as Asian Doll, the Dallas rapper knows she has a lot of impact and she's expecting everybody to follow in her footsteps of adopting a new identity, turning to a brat in the coming months. Becoming the first-ever woman to sign to Gucci Mane's 1017 Eskimo label, Asian is fully aware that she's pushing boundaries, breaking glass ceilings and ensuring that she sticks around for a long time.
Having recently changed her name and leaving the Doll faction, the 22-year-old has been receiving praise for the major decision. Once you establish yourself as a hitmaker in this loaded music industry, it can be difficult to restart from square one. Just look at what Lil Nas X is going through right now. His name started as a joke but now that he owns the number one song in the country, he's got to stick with it. Asian Da Brat shows love to those that decide to go by the Doll moniker, including DreamDoll and Cuban Doll, but she's above that stage in her career now.
Watch her explain the switch-up, as well as her friendship with Lil Uzi Vert and what Nicki Minaj means to her in the latest episode of On The Come Up below.
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Asian Da Brat has previously described herself as a female version of Lil Uzi Vert. Despite being from different states and being at different stages in their careers, Uzi would agree with that sentiment. During her sit-down with us, Asian spoke about the first conversation she ever had with Uzi on the phone, chatting with the Philly rapper about anything and everything.
When an A&R told Asian that she should try out a more "auto-tuned" vibe in her music, she tested it out over Lil Uzi Vert's "Buy It" loosie. She ended up remixing the track to create "Rockstar Baby" and after that, her friendship with Lil Uzi was solidified. "I uploaded the video on my Instagram page and I tagged Uzi," said Asian. "Uzi liked it. Then I made another video and Uzi liked it again. So Uzi always known and paid attention to me. I just put my pride to the side one day and DMed Uzi like, 'you know it's long overdue that we do a song.' He's like, 'call me.'" From that point on, they became best friends forever.
Lil Uzi Vert isn't the only person in the industry that Asian Da Brat has a good relationship with. She's also grown close to Nicki Minaj, who is somebody that Asian used to idolize. While they've never had a heart-to-heart, Asian has reached out to Nicki Minaj and the iconic performer acknowledged her skillset. One day, Asian wanted to let her fans know exactly where her ideas come from and she disclosed that she had been listening to Nicki Minaj for years, tagging the rapper and expecting nothing of it. To her surprise, Nicki actually saw the tweet and reacted to it. "When she seen that, she respected me," says the Dallas rapper. "Then she followed me, then she be liking all my stuff. It's so genuine to the point where she's seeing the shit and she's recognizing it so she fuck with me, you know?"
Stay tuned for the next episode of On The Come Up and be sure to follow our OTCU playlist on Spotify to get a sneak peek at the artists we'll be featuring on the new season.