Growing up in Chicago, Fendi says she used her environment as inspiration and despite the violent image the media often displays about the windy city, it wasn’t all bad, it was fun.
“It’s really not how they say it is. Chicago is really a fun place to be,” the rapper asserts. “All kinds of good things go on in Chicago, it’s not really all about guns, violence, and shootings. We have festivals and the Taste of Chicago. We have Fendi who’s making Chicago fun again with the drill and the juke music,” she says with a smile. “You just gotta elevate and you gotta watch.”
Surprises seem to be the theme of this season for Fendi; shortly after her song started buzzing all over social media, Cardi B’s team reached out to inquire about doing the remix.
“When I first found out Cardi wanted to get on the song, I was shocked. I’m like, wait, this is the biggest female rapper! I was so excited,” she remembers. “There were tears of joy and excitement. And I was just so happy.”
We caught up with Fendi Da Rappa to talk about her rise as a female rapper from Chicago, her hit song, “Point Me 2,” the future of juke-drill, and more.
Talk to me about a young Fendi. How did you start rapping?
I started rapping in 2012. When I was growing up I was in this all-girl group called Pink Savage. We used to just be rapping, going to the studio, doing a lot of little things that kids do. We came up with some names. I came up with Fendi, it all had to have “savage” at the end of the name so it was like Fendi Savage, Tinka Savage. But as we grew older, we just took the “savage” off and left it regular like Fendi or Tinka or Marie.
What would you say your sound is? Would you say that you are drill or are you more of a mixture of things? Cause your sound is kind of juke too.
I think drill and juke, I combined them together. So it’s just like, boom, like a firecracker.
