Naturally awkward people can produce a powerful charm in the right context. Norway's Erlend Øye, one half of indie-folk duo Kings of Convenience, has built much of his career aesthetic on this paradox. Recall the video for the 2004 single "I'd Rather Dance With You", which finds Øye in a red and white tracksuit, navigating a throng of giggling girls in a ballet class and letting his limbs fly and droop in a series of choreographed moves. He's a master of leaning calmly into his gawkiness rather than attempting to mask it, and he exudes an unassuming sort of confidence as a result. So it was no surprise to see him pop up alongside a young Bulgarian woman named DENA last summer in a video for a knowingly goofy but genuinely infectious rap single called "Cash, Diamond Rings, Swimming Pools". There they were, two peas in a pod: gangly, welcoming, unpretentious, deeply European. "If you're listening to this in a hot country/ Please come rescue me," DENA raps in her thick Bulgarian accent in an assortment of clashing outfits, "If you got a swimming pool, then we can be hanging.”
Part M.I.A.-informed party rap, part YouTube novelty, part small-town Eastern European documentary, “Cash, Diamond Rings, Swimming Pools” had all the hallmarks of a meme-y, flash-in-the-pan internet rap hit. (DENA’s YouTube account name is "denafromtheblock".) But the kitsch of her style translates nicely across her debut album Flash, a small and inviting record that is unfazed—delighted, even—by its own rough edges and occasionally bumbling sensibilities. It’s an album that lifts from an almost comically basic hip-hop and social-media glossary to talk about young adult love and frustration and ambition in an endearing way: “Haters gonna hate/ Lovers gonna love/ If you mess with me/ You get a total ignore,” DENA raps bluntly on “Total Ignore”. “You can’t believe that my beats so banging/ Yeah, I made it all while you were hanging,” she boasts. The production, which DENA handled herself, is a studied blend of clatter, simple keyboard melodies, and quiet boom-bap.
Which isn’t to say that Flash is cartoon music. DENA strikes a delicate balance between sounding naive enough to pray to the altar of American rap flash and excess and savvy enough to recognize her own distance from it. “I haven’t been taking any planes today/ You’re the one who whisks away and I’m the one who stays,” she laments on “Jet Lag”. “I think I’m having jet lag without even having fun.” The record is more nuanced and knowing than simple white-girl gag rap; DENA’s charm buffers her from some of the pitfalls of her outsider-rap status. Flash carves her out a new space in a crowded sphere: She's a refreshing foil to the jaded slickness of an artist like Lorde, the brutal tone-deafness of someone like the white Swedish rapper Yung Lean, or the overbearing cutesiness of a Kitty Pryde.
There’s a sense that DENA earned her sly stripes because she's a true music nerd, and that she uses music as a means of escaping small-town claustrophobia. It’s evident on a song like “Cash, Diamond Rings, Swimming Pools”, where she sings that she’s “hanging here and wishing to be there, ending up with not really being anywhere.” Some of her best work came in the form of a SoundCloud mix called “High on Hi Hats”, which blended together an unexpected list of contemporary remix obscurities with forgotten classics like Guru and Kelis’ “Supa Love”. Like the best kind of nerd, she’s done her research. Now she just wants to participate and share, and doesn't mind showing off her imperfections in the process.
