PREMIERE | Trap Girl, "Baddest B*tch"

The best & baddest in the biz — LA’s Trap Girl; photographed by Nani Gross.

In a world where the tendency is to slide backwards toward tribal hostilities, often times the only way to counter the bastards is with an ounce or two of assertive aggression. Amid endless projections, posturing, discriminatory legislation, and more cringe rhetoric than one can humanly stomach — there comes a time to constructively put the haters in check. A time to flex with a might that is sincere, unironic and pointed with a brash bravado that towers above the fallows of unproductive discourse to make a statement of unbridled existence. At a time when it feels as if the bad folx have won the civic (and so-called civil) games of chance, it is more urgent than ever that the enlightened baddies of the world unite as allies in an effort to restore harmony across all spectrums of the light that unites us all under the technicolor rainbow banners of our collective humanity.

Cue Los Angeles force to be reckoned with, Trap Girl, as they unveil the debut of “Baddest Bitch” from their upcoming new album The Savage Goddess via Kill Rock Stars. Seen recently at Oakland’s Mosswood Meltdown, bandleader Drew Arriola-Sands, with Jorge Reveles, Jocelyn Aguilera, and Daniel Guzman bring their take no crap message to the whole wide world. Broadcasting a self-proclaimed passion for femme supremacy, Trap Girl brings the rage with a powder keg of queer positivity to drown out the harbingers of transphobia and the petty politicians that peddle their anemic agendas of projected insecurities and platforms of unfounded fear and indoctrinated hate.

Complete with pop art performance visuals in front of a magenta pink background, Trap Girl bring a bevy of attitude, carnal anger and equal doses of punk camp and cool. "Baddest Bitch" delivers big on dive bar stage theatrics, while keeping the momentum burning and churning like an internal combustion engine inferno. Trap Girl absorbs all the anguish and clamor that consumes our consciousnesses from the incessant chatter from the media and tribulations witnessed in the doom scroll of our algorithm tilted timelines with a song that interrupts the regularly scheduled decorum found in the cyclical hell-bound headlines that our lives our inundated with ad nauseam.

Driveway journeys and hangouts with Trap Girl; press photo courtesy of Nani Gross.

"Baddest Bitch" is not here to play nice, it is a statement of being that breaks the maddening echo chambers that fill the vacuums of our congested consciousness. Trap Girl disrupts the program of choreographed civilities for something crass, not coy, that disregards the safeguards of content warnings for a style and statements that are unapologetically in your face. "Baddest" breaks the silence and systemic sciences of socially engineered complacency for an energized degree of art that opens all available faculties of the senses to take heed, take notice, and due warning.

The punk testaments of Trap Girl; photographed by Nani Gross.

Drew Arriola-Sands shared some behind-the-scenes insights on the inception of their new single:

The moment I heard the original riff that became "Baddest Bitch", which at the time was an instrumental demo titled "Teen Wolf Too", which Jorge wrote and recorded the music for, probably intended for one of his solo or side projects. I liked how almost poppy it was, I looked at it as a challenge for me as a lyricist. I thought to myself, How can I take this pop riff and put the most naughty yet crude words to it?

Single cover art courtesy of the artists.

I said my love for fellatio and femme supremacy will do the trick, and I wrote "Baddest Bitch" in one night while watching Russ Meyer's Vixen (which is actually terrible) and sipping thru a better half of a Miller Lite 6 pack.

Trap Girl’s upcoming album The Savage Goddess arrives September 27 via Kill Rock Stars.