It’s only taken three years for Cortisa Star to go from making messy beats in her bedroom to teetering on the edge of being music’s next “it” girl. The 19-year-old artist first started making her blown-out, distorted internet rap as an escape from the isolation of rural Delaware, a place where she felt like “the most different person in the room 90 per cent of the time”.
Seeking solace in the internet’s limitless realms helped Star construct the person she is today. It wasn’t long before she was mining samples from looperman.com and uncovered a world of female underground rappers like Skypearleddat, whose fuzzy distortion and bratty aggression informed her own delivery. “Her song ‘SHE AIN FWM!!!’, that really just woke me up,” she tells NME. “I was like ‘wait, I’m a girl, I’m angry, and I can rap: let me do that’.”
Hot off her track ‘Fun’ blowing up on TikTok in 2024, Star has since dropped five singles and is determined to bring permanence to this nebulous virality. Cosigns from Charli XCX, Doechii, Kim Petras and Lil Nas X – with whom she is manifesting a collaboration – have increased her velocity and determination tenfold. “I’m an outcast in this scene,” says Star. “There’s no trans rappers nowhere out front, and having the support is just so important, especially cuz they’re so open about it.”
Chatting with NME shortly after her runway debut for luxury brand Miu Miu’s AW25 show at Paris Fashion Week, she still can’t quite believe that it happened at all. In true Star-style, she topped it off by dropping her own hype track inspired by the moment. “[‘Paris’] was very much a ‘I’m here bitch’ type of song – I’m not going anywhere.”
One of the lyrics on ‘Paris’ is “don’t like the track, so I had to adjust.” How did this sentiment inform the creation of your EP, ‘E.M.O. (Evil Motion Overload)’?
“It was pretty spontaneous. My team set up a six-day recording trip in New York and I recorded 12 songs and was like, ‘This could make a cute little EP’. I had this random vibe because it was the first time I was in the studio that I could scream and be as loud as I could, musically.
“I worked with a lot of producers. Getting to see how everybody works differently and how everyone – even my friends – put their inputs on the beat and how something should be changed is so beautiful. There was boys from Jersey, trans girls who love hyperpop. MsChickenSandwich made ‘Bad AF’, so she was there the whole time. And this is a very umru EP.”
The EP feels like a real homage to being a club kid.
“Just being young and going through this crazy shit and living my life, that was what I was really pouring out onto [‘EMO’]. I’m just young, lit and turnt – and that’s a lot of people. Everybody young and turnt, even the 50-year-olds.”
“I love creativity so much and artistry will always be my centrepoint”
Your song ‘Fun’ blew up on TikTok last year. Did you find people on your wavelength off the back of that song?
“I got more followers the second I started posting my music, because I used to just post dumb videos of me trying to be funny, and then the music got so serious. It’s such a random array of people that like my music, people from everywhere.
“Social media is awesome. I was basically raised on the internet because I grew up in a small town of Sussex County, Delaware which was farmland, beach. So, the internet was a beautiful escape, like my fantasy world.”
You dropped out of school because of bullying. Does the success you’re having now feel vindicating in contrast to the tough times?
“Yes! Right before I dropped out, I was at the darkest, deepest point in my life, and it felt like I killed the old me and was reborn. My free will took over and I was like, I can actually do whatever I want. I was really trying to find myself. I had no idea who I was – I didn’t even know what my favourite colour was at that point.”
‘Misidentify’ is a track that is especially queer-affirming. As a transgender woman in the music industry, how has your journey shaped your artistry and the messages you convey through your music?
“I was gender-fluid, non-binary when I was in high school… I really, truly did believe that gender did not benefit a single person on this Earth, not even my dog. Just realising that my identity and how I am perceived by others, and even how I perceive myself, it does not matter when it comes to the cleaner’s process. I love creativity so much and artistry will always be my centrepoint. Once I realised that, I could just focus on that.
“It came to a point where I literally can no longer conceptualise the perception of myself from other people’s view, because it just does not matter to me. It is [liberating]. People tell me all the time, ‘If I got your comments or if I got the same DMs you would have, I’d kill myself’. And I’m like, you don’t have to do that. You can turn off your phone and go outside. It’s OK.”
As a trans woman and a rapper in a genre that has been historically misogynistic and discriminatory to the queer community, what has your experience been creating music in that genre and community, as well as a young person navigating that?
“It’s been crazy because, even when older people jam me and they’re like ‘You’re a pioneer’, ‘You inspire me so much’. This is a crazy life we live because I don’t even feel like I’m inspiring anybody. I’m just moving, I’m just doing what I feel like I want to do every day.”
“I used to have the worst social anxiety. Now, I’m in New York yelling in the deli for my sandwich”
Your lyrics are often confrontational and sexual, meanwhile your delivery is relentless. How does each of these things help with your freedom of expression?
“I like to put the thoughts [from] the backest part of my mind on the song, but also the ones at the front – never the ones in the middle. I don’t really care about anything anymore, anything anybody says. I used to have the worst social anxiety. Now, I’m in New York yelling in the deli for my sandwich.”
I can’t imagine you being an anxious person because of your whole demeanour and performance.
“Oh yeah, it’s terrible. When it comes to strangers, I don’t care. But even now, when I got photo shoots for modelling, I don’t talk that much because I just get so nervous around new people.”
How do you find that other part of yourself when it comes to music and performing or recording?
“The way my brain is wired, I like logic a lot, and it’s just not logical or beneficial for me to be anxious. So, after a while I’m like, ‘OK, girl – stand up. You must stand up.’ I was doing so many shows, meeting so many new people and I was always so anxious. And I was like, I need to talk to these people, I need to learn new things.
“It was really hard, I used to get so anxious just because of a simple notification. It was debilitating, destroying me. Once I realised I had that free will, I could really not care.”
Cortisa Star’s ‘E.M.O. (Evil Motion Overload)’ is out now