Kilo Kish States Her Name

Naming is a sacred practice; renaming is a radical one. Part of the early appeal of the wispy half-rapper Kilo Kish was how quirky and pointy her stage name was. The hard consonant initials, the winking allusion, the intuitive abridgement—Kish, like, duh—it all made her that much more fun to talk about: “Had you heard of Kilo Kish?” Odd Future had—particularly the R. & B. producer Matt Martians, who oversaw the lion’s share of her début mixtape, “Navy.” So had the Village Voice, which gave Kish a cover, in 2012. In an accompanying article, the artist recounted her first concert: she performed at the Top of the Standard, in New York, for an A-list crowd before she graduated from F.I.T. Kish’s docile, conversational vocal tone, celestial dust beats, and meticulously chic finish made her an overnight darling in the style press. All the while, she kept music at arm’s length, claiming that she preferred textile design to the trap-lined rat race of being an aspiring rapper.