It’s April 2011 and OG Niki makes an explosive entrance into the music scene. Nobody had heard of her until this video, but this infamous freestyle on #SPITYOURGAME made her a viral sensation and caused her to be permanently etched in the minds of many.

She spits her opening line with glee laced with small levels of cockiness ‘Get f*cked from the back screaming la la la/I f*cked six man on the camera’. The profanity, the crudeness and the sheer boldness was something which viewers were not ready for. It cracked the conservative cocoon in which the U.K music scene lived and to some extent, still does. The freestyle, almost 3 and half minutes, details Niki’s sexual adventures. With witty lyrics and quips, Niki holds nothing back as she vividly describes the intricacies of her sexual escapades. At times, her flow hiccups on the beat, but she quickly regains her rhythm so every detail she spews can ring in our ears.

OG Niki became an instant internet sensation and went viral. The video was being watched everywhere. It was simply impossible to escape and even more impossible to not watch multiple times. But this popularity wasn’t positive. OG Niki was slut-shamed, chastised and dragged on social media. She was cancelled before the cancel culture which we know today even existed and was as a meme before the term had been coined. Don’t Jealous Me, who at the time was a Youtube comedy sensation, responded to her freestyle with a scathing and humorous video.

OG Niki disappeared as quickly as she appeared. Disillusioned by the overwhelming popularity, backlash and sneers, she faded into the background. Although she did receive some support, it wasn’t enough to drown out the blaring sounds of abuse. She was a 17-year-old girl from Birmingham, with 0 guidance who simply just wanted to rap. It was her friendship group who inspired her to start rapping ‘I thought I was part of the mandem. They rapped, and that was their lifestyle’ she says in her interview with Complex.  Her career didn’t take off, but ironically Jaykae and Bugzy Malone, who also had #SPITYOURGAME appearances in the same year, careers did. In 2016, she released a freestyle over Young M.A’s Ooouu but it didn’t cause much of a stir and it is pretty much unheard of.

In hindsight, OG Niki’s rejection was surprising yet unsurprising. It was surprising as this style of rapping was not new, we had seen this overt and sexually explicit style of rapping from the likes of Lil’ Kim, Foxy Brown and Missy Elliot.  But her rejection was also unsurprising purely due to the time in which she came out. In 2011, the female rap scene had shrunk to only Nicki Minaj and despite her sexual image, her lyrical content seldom matched her appearance. As Nicki Minaj was so globally dominant, there wasn’t much room for any other female rapper, let alone a female rapper who didn’t fit into the industry’s ideal female archetype. OG Niki’s rejection was compounded by the fact that we are culturally more conservative in the U.K.  There is some allowance to be crude and sexual, but there is a line that can’t be crossed.  OG Niki crossed this line and for these reasons, her 3 minutes of unfiltered sex talk ruffled some feathers.

Fast forward to 6 years later and it is the summer of Cardi B’s Bodak Yellow. Cardi B’s rapid rise is like no other, she goes from the stripper pole to stage podiums where she raps about her sexual escapades and how swift she is to cut n*ggas off. By 2018, there was a clear insurgence of female rappers: Megan Thee Stallion, Rico Nasty, Dreezy, Saweetie, Ms Banks, City Girls – the list was infinite. At the same time of this insurgence, there was a shift regarding women’s sexual liberation and empowerment. There was greater allowance for women to be more expressive in this area. We saw this expression in television, films and on social media. Whether consciously or not, these rappers began inserting these themes into their lyrics. Meg Thee Stallion has women claiming themselves to be ‘Stallions’ and ‘Big Ole Freaks’ and City Girls has girls acting up and using Where The Bag At as some sort of sat nav for navigating their relationships with men.

The content of their lyrics is just as sexually explicit as OG Niki’s but their music is a hit here in the U.K.  So, what’s the difference? Time. We are now in a completely different era. It’s the era of female liberation and OG Niki was simply 6 – 7 years too early to be accepted by the U.K. Today, her lyrics would have been greeted with Ayes and twerks. OG Niki was light years ahead of her time and the industry and listeners simply lacked the foresight. Had her freestyle been released in today’s City Girls era, she would have been an instant hit and the U.K’s answer to their prayers for their own home-grown Meg Thee Stallion.

OG Niki was the first of her kind and there seems to not have been another in the UK since. Despite Steff London’s and Ms Banks’ evident sexual image, their level of crudeness and lyrics pale in comparison to OG Niki’s. Simply type her name in on Twitter and you are met with a plethora of tweets – some wondering where she is, how she’s doing and realising how sick her freestyle really was. Scrolling through the tweets you can’t but sense the feeling of remourse. People feel hypocritical for rejecting her but accepting the current wave of female rappers. OG Niki was a pioneer, and a pioneer who is owed an over-due apology.