Lola Brooke: the small but mighty MC making big moves

Inside a downtown New York City loft, and Brooklyn’s very own Lola Brooke is sitting in a makeup chair balancing a salad in one hand and a cell phone in the other. There’s an excitable buzz in the air as everyone preps her NME Cover photoshoot, arranging strips of metallic tape for a backdrop while tying her into a pair of platform heels. Despite having just signed a major label deal with Sony Records imprint Arista [Princess Nokia, KennyHoopla] earlier this year, Brooke is completely comfortable amidst the chaos, handling it all with the poise of a seasoned pro.

It wasn’t too long ago that Brooke was working shifts at a men’s shelter in Queens and days like this one felt more like a dream than reality. “My position was residential aide,” she tells NME. “I would get home at eight in the morning and I’d go to the studio after work. I was so tired.” During those long shifts, music became an escape for her. “It kept me sane,” she says. “I was going through a lot in life and music helped me express myself. It was more me chasing therapy than just chasing a career. It’s what kept me going throughout the day.”

One of the challenges Brooke cites was living with her mother during that time, a single parent who was “independent and about business” and fostered a strict home environment. However, it was her mother’s faith in Brooke’s career that ultimately led to her becoming a full-time rapper in 2017. “I used to doubt myself so much,” she says. “But once my mom told me it was cool to resign, I started believing in myself more. I had reassurance.”

It was during that same year that Brooke released her first music video, a clip titled ‘2017 Flow’. The freestyle drew attention from rap fans, who noted her wickedly fierce delivery and the juxtaposition of powerful, larger-than-life verses flowing from her barely five-foot frame. She kept the momentum going with a string of follow-up tracks: ‘Bipolar’ the next year, ‘Cash Out’ in 2019 and ‘My Bop’ in 2020. Though none of those led to immediate success, it didn’t stop Brooke from pushing forward. “I’m a small package, but I come with the baggage though,” she says with a laugh. “I know myself and I built that confidence within myself through self-knowledge. I don’t stop.”

Five years after the release of her first video, Brooke’s perseverance paid off. In 2021, ‘Don’t Play With It’ a gritty, sharp and boisterous track featuring fellow Brooklyn rapper Billy B took off on TikTok when more than 600,000 users lifted the line “I carry bitches like I’m preggo (Pop-pop-pop-pop)” to soundtrack their videos. The song pushed Brooke onto the world stage, spun a remix featuring fellow female emcees Yung Miami and Latto and even got her on the lineup for Rolling Loud New York City’s festival. Amassing 100 million streams (and counting) is no small feat, but as the rapper told NME earlier this year: “Numbers don’t move me, hype doesn’t move me.”

So, what moves Brooke? “I want to have a big impact on people’s lives more than numbers,” she says. “When I first started doing music I did it because I was encouraged and inspired by other artists to tap into my feelings. That’s what keeps me going. The numbers are just the rewards.”

If her ultimate goal is to impact the community she grew up in, she’s well on her way to achieving it. “I’ve been getting random calls from back home saying, ‘You’re doing great, the hood is inspired’,” she says with a bright grin. “That alone makes me feel the impact.”

“I want to have a big impact on people’s lives”

Born Shyniece Thomas in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighbourhood of Brooklyn, Brooke’s birthplace is pivotal to who she is today. One aspect of New York’s underground scene that left an indelible mark on Brooke is its bustling drag community, whom she has been interacting with since a young age. “I’m a big fan of drag,” she says. “You don’t necessarily have to use your government name every day. [Drag artists] can have another name. You have different characters that you could be and you’re not stuck in a box. Speaking to you right now, I just realised drag might have been the start of my alter-egos without even knowing.”

She adds: “The culture in New York inspires me a lot. When I open up my mouth, everybody knows where I’m from. I couldn’t hide it if I wanted to.”

With her recently-released debut project, ‘Dennis Daughter’, Brooke allows listeners to see the full picture of where she came from. “I want them to understand me as Shyniece, as well as Lola Brooke,” she says. “I wanted them to know that the reason I am Lola Brooke is because of what I’ve gone through. This is what encouraged me to tell my story.”

That story involves being raised solely by her mother as her late father, Dennis, struggled with substance abuse issues. “I was lonely,” she says of her tumultuous upbringing. “I didn’t have anyone to speak to because my mom was working so hard. So I found a way to express myself, whether it was for me or a family member or a friend, whoever.” At first, Brooke wrote down her feelings in diaries, getting comfortable with her pen before she was able to articulate those feelings to the world. “Now I go to the booth and lay it down vocally,” she says. “I’m saying it out loud.”

“This success wasn’t a mistake. I didn’t get lucky”

‘Dennis Daughter’ opens with ‘Intro (2023 Flow)’, a brisk track that sees Brooke paying tribute to her father, rapping “When I needed love from my pops, they imprisoned him / Would of been fucked if I didn’t grow as Dennis kid (I can’t imagine)” over tense piano keys. The track continues to unpack Brooke’s past as she talks about escaping poverty. But her penchant for bravado is still mixed in with her vulnerability: “But this time around, I hold that shit down”, she spits. “None of my opps could terrorise the town.”

Brooke’s assertive streak continues with ‘I Am Lola’, on which she reminds listeners that she’s ”Been that bitch / And I’m still that bitch.” As she explains: “‘I Am Lola’ is very important because it was me telling everyone that I’m the one,” she says. “This [success] wasn’t a mistake. I didn’t get lucky. I’m blessed for sure but I’ve been doing this for a long time – this was my destiny.”

Elsewhere on ‘Dennis Daughter’, Brooke teams up with French Montana on the rapid-paced club track ‘Pit Stop’, and Bryson Tiller on ‘You’. Coi Leray and Nija, meanwhile, both assist Brooke on ‘Don’t Get Me Started’. The aforementioned ‘Don’t Play With It’ remix also appears on the project, but don’t get it twisted: ‘Dennis Daughter’ is all about Brooke, she reaffirms.

“The project is more of a continuation of my story than an introduction,” she says. “Whoever catches on, they catch on. Any body of work I put out is always gonna feel like album quality but this right here is a big deal for me. It’s my first baby.” Brooke, however, is already thinking about what she wants to release next. “I got this chapter down,” she says. “Now I’m like, ‘What else do I need to work on within myself? What else do I want?’ Then I head back into the studio with that in mind.”

‘Dennis Daughter’ may contain Brooke’s most revealing verses to date, but when NME asks if there’s anything else she wants people to know about her, she adds one more thing. “I’m very tapped into my emotions. I’m not just the girl from Brooklyn that’s ready to stomp somebody out with her boots,” she says, laughing. “Sometimes, I just want a kiss on my forehead.”

Lola Brooke’s EP ‘Dennis Daughter’ is out now via Arista Records

Listen to Lola Brooke’s exclusive playlist to accompany The Cover below on Spotify and here on Apple Music

Writer: Erica Campbell
Photography: Sam Keeler
Styling: Naya Ashley
MUA: Niasia Boyd
Label: Arista Records

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