Franco-Cameroonian hip-hop artist and melodic emcee Dirtsa reveals her galvanizing single “say shit!,” a poised call to action stemming from her personal experiences with the world’s adversities to racism and microaggressions. In “say shit!,” the poet turned rapper oozes with confidence, demanding the listeners attention through her signature melodic rap flow over swelling bass drops and wind-whistling atmospheric keys. 

Through personal anecdotes, Dirtsa invites us to break into an ideal new world together where personal boundaries take precedence and we speak up for those who may not have the courage to use their voice. 

1. How do you think your heritage inspires and shapes your creativity?

It feels really good knowing where I come from as time goes. I grew up in France and left Cameroon when I was 6 years old. So growing up, I sometimes felt like I did not belong. Thus, I wasn’t always comfortable with myself. But with age, I have come to embrace it and I am able to reveal more of myself in it. I am learning to become a bridge between the worlds, and this musically helps me navigate my sound and deal with the things that I didn’t necessarily know how to cope with before. 

2. Your writing is pretty blunt and direct. What inspires your style?

I guess this is who I am and what I aspire to be. I’m inspired by day to day life, how I’m feeling at the moment, how the production makes me feel. If it’s on my mind, I will let it out. 

3. Tell us about “say shit!” and how it came about?

We worked on the instrumental with Exil. I had a great time working on this with him. I came loaded with a lot of notes regarding where I wanted my sound to go. There’s an edgy side to this one particularly, and it’s something I really wanted to try. I then got to record it within the project as a whole at home. It closes this body of work as a testimony and a calmness found again. When you first listen to it it may not seem like it, but when you play the project as a whole you realize that it’s the only track built on a base of silence in terms of layers and voices on my side. The outerworld and its shams get shut down so I can hear myself better.  

4. What’s the main theme of your upcoming EP?

On this EP, I put work around notions of braveness and standing tall in situations where you feel like there’s no room for you to express yourself. I believe we should really work on ways to respect each other wholeheartedly and stand up for each other aside from interest. I reflect on what kind of person I aim to be. It’s also for when I ever feel doubt, I can go back to this and know, yes ok – now it’s time to move forward. 

5. What do you think makes you different from other artists in your genre? 

I feel there’s a lot of great artists and musicians. We all are different though. I’m different just by being myself and they’re different just for being themselves. Someone else may tackle the same questions in their music, and just being them would make them different. 

6. What’s your favorite thing about being an artist?

Probably that we get to be some kind of sociologists in a way and get to be a testimony of a certain time, a certain society, of certain emotions and feelings shared sometimes by a lot of people at the same time. Of course a sociologist writes differently, but it’s the closest image that I could find. I also enjoy how I can see myself evolve and progress with my art. 

7. What’s your least favorite thing about being an artist?

I’m thankful to still be looking for it. If you had told my 12 years old-self dreaming of being a modern poet or something close to it, she would be so happy I can get to say I’m a songwriter. And of course not everything about being an artist is just peachy and always cool, no. We still have to compose the same things everyone does. It has its hardships, but I don’t have a least favorite thing. It’s a whole package, just like in any other trade. I just try focusing on why I started.