Rising hip-hop artist and female powerhouse, Wowashwow, has released her sophomore album, The Algorithm, today. This body of work is a testament to Wowashwow’s ability to blend her punk rock heritage, eccentric indie hip-hop vibes, freestyle rap finesse, and a fearless approach to “obliterating the pop formula.” The result is a genre-fluid experience that defies categorization. Produced by Sam J Garfield, The Algorithm challenges the premeditated and quantified nature of algorithms that govern online society and social media-crazed humankind, and it seeks to shatter the rules and bring back the magic and essence of art, music, and creativity. Wowashwow elaborates; “I called it The Algorithm because it’s such a juxtaposition from my 1st to 2nd album. While creating my 1st album the thought process was, is this going to work for IG Reels or TikTok? I mostly thought about the marketing and how to feed the algorithm. This time around I completely morphed myself away from that and got back to my roots of creating music that makes me happy. Even with the album artwork, I’m half android morphing back into a human. It represents me coming back into who I am as a person, rather than being a person doing anything to stay relevant.”
Wowashwow has a flare for the theatrical, a freestyling fluency fierce enough to threaten the male-dominated hip-hop scene and brings an “unbridled bravado through no holds barred, unapologetic rhymes.” Standout track “Class Enrollment” came to life during a break in the middle of a studio session. During that time Wowashwow was having a somewhat heated text conversation with an acquaintance, which led her to start doubting her own self worth. In that moment she thought, “Wtf! No! I’m so much more than what this person is reducing me to. And in fact it’s time to read this bih for filth. Class is in session.” Track number 4 “You Think This Rap Is About You” was inspired by the Linda Ronstat song, “You’re So Vain.” Again born in a studio session, Wowashwow wrote this song for every single person in her life who has ever thought they were playing with her heart and emotions, but wound up playing themselves in the long run.
With the visual surrealism of Missy Elliot, the untamable energy of Tina Turner meets Mick Jagger, and the genre-fluidity reminiscent of Radiohead; our South Jersey/Philly raised visionary is presenting a body of work so profoundly groundbreaking, that it is fragmenting the current set of rules and obliterating the mundane nature of it all. The Algorithm loosely tells the story of a character from another dimension visiting planet Earth, providing a unique perspective on their experience navigating between worlds. It’s a manifesto of authenticity and empathy, reminding us that we are all aliens in a world controlled by the algorithm. The question arises: Who will be the first to crack the code?
