If producer Krissy Marchante‘s intention was to flood the Bay Area rap scene with new voices, she did just that with her mixtape Poon Typhoon, which stars six rising local female rappers: DeOzene, Kay Bellz, Qing Qi, Coco Cissoko, Ray Banz and Outrageous Karina. The upbeat project bounces between classic Bay blaps and pulsing house beats, with flex-oriented rhymes for listeners on a money-making mission.
Marchante and several of the rappers on the tape met at the all-woman cypher DJ Shellheart threw at Oaklandish earlier this year. Some of them came into the project serendipitously, like Cissoko, whom Marchante happened to pick up while driving for Uber. “All those girls, I listened to all their music, and every girl is poppin’,” Marchante told me when we met in a tucked-away tavern in her home town of Albany.
Marchante DJs at the new queer hip-hop party Uniq at Port Bar on Nov. 10; DeOzene, from “Hater Talk” and “Cut the Check,” is also performing live. Proceeds from the party go to the nonprofit American Indian Child Resource Center.