If Princess Nokia’s last album was a love letter to herself, her new project Girls is her college thesis. It’s her guidebook to living a fulfilling life, embracing femininity, and decentering men. “It’s an endless sleepover, it’s a summer playlist, it’s a soundtrack to your best friends,” she says.

She wrote the first song on the project, &#34;Matcha Cherry,&#34; after a joyful hang with her cousin in Puerto Rico. “My cousin and I girled out,” she says. “She gave me a family heirloom, we listened to Charli XCX, we had so much fun. It completely moved me. All of my other work that has been inspired by my personal life has always been about survival. That’s also a valid experience of girlhood, but at that moment, I thought, ‘Oh my God, I’m living the life of my dreams right now.’”

Part of that reverie comes from intentionally nurturing personal growth outside of the male gaze. On summer anthem-to-be “Drop Dead Gorgeous,” Princess Nokia is emboldened by the idea of an entirely female-powered world. She raps over pulsing synths with a compelling nonchalance: “We can do what we want, get a gun kind of summer/ Girlhood, girls bleed, mean girl, girl fun, girl books, girl code, girl hate, girl love/ Free the girl ”

While Girls is a celebration of growth and of newfound peace, it’s also ultimately an embodiment of Princess Nokia’s truest, most fundamental self. “I’ve always been a girl who has my own house, my own weed, and my own squad,” she says.

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