Shygirl is a master of making filth beautiful. One of the biggest breakout stars of 2022, the London-born rapper and songwriter has constructed a world where the ugly and the erotic coalesce. While the surface of her sound is distinctly feminine – her breathy falsetto barely rising above a whisper, the title of her debut album Nymph evoking fertility and playfulness – the interior is borderline mutant. Each song opens the door to a dark, disgusting underbelly of sexuality where the girls are for the streets, kisses are “slick like honey” and to desire is to be “ravished, mauled, adored”.
Swaying in front of a sold out crowd at Printworks, whose narrow corridor-like dancefloor and towering concrete balconies are omnipresent on TikTok and lent the club scene of The Batman its seedy aesthetic, Shygirl is a picture of modern power. An elegant and subtle performer with a vice-like grip on her audience, she stands alone on a vast stage while a crowd of 5,000 people in padded jackets and hardware necklaces recite “woke up feeling like a slut, yeah I like that” as if it’s the Lord’s Prayer.
