Mama Duke is a singer-songwriter and rapper. She says her new album is a riff on the many ways she identifies that make her an underrepresented person in the music world. She says being a gay, mixed race woman in hip hop has put a chip on her shoulder. But “Ballsy” is a “braggadocious body of work” that confronts her frustrations. She grew up in a small town with “more cows than people” and very few other people who were either Black or gay.
“My mom actually told me I was gay. Which was weird – and the coolest story ever,” she said.