There’s something radically disarming about Jerraka Brown, the 28-year-old hip-hop artist better known as Cuddlethot.
Perhaps it’s the shock of blonde curls paired with the teashade glasses, or the slightness of her unassuming frame. She’s poised and nonchalant here at Mothership Coffee inside Fergusons Downtown. As it turns out, the coolheadedness presented on mixtapes such as 2020’s The Melting Thot isn’t so much a musical style as a personality trait.
“There’s a lot of different styles of me on there, and I want to carry that throughout the rest of my career, ” says Brown, whose influences include Kanye West and Tyler, the Creator. “I don’t want to be bound to making chill, lo-fi music to relax to. I want to make bangers. I want to see the crowd moshing sometimes.”
Brown fell in love with recording at a young age. Growing up in Seattle, she’d tag along with her brothers to their friend’s home studio, where they rapped and taught her about beatmaking. Even after joining the Air Force, Brown kept music close, ghost writing for musicians she met while stationed in Anchorage, Alaska, for four years.
In 2017, Brown moved to Las Vegas, where she discovered she belonged. “The energy is crazy here; it’s so fast-paced,” she says, “whereas in Seattle and Alaska, it’s like people go there to settle down, raise a family, get cable TV and forget about their dreams.”
Not Brown. Upon arriving here, she immediately began releasing music as Cuddlethot, performing at events such as DTLV Field Trip and working at Junxion Sound, a Downtown recording studio where local producers have contributed to Grammy-nominated projects such as West’s Donda.
Transparency abounds in Cuddlethot’s writing. The emcee and singer excavates from her own life, crafting narratives around love and emotional struggles, as in the mellow “Toxins,” a song about “keeping a person around just [because] we’re both lonely,” Brown says. On the track, Cuddlethot candidly raps, “Had depression/I still do/Come sit in my cesspool/I’m here if you want to/I really don’t want you.”
“Ultimately, I make music for myself; it’s a venting thing,” she says. “But I also make music for those people who are like me: queer young black kids. The weirdos who don’t quite fit in. The awkward kids. The hopeless romantics.”
With artists like Lil Nas X flaunting his LGBTQ status and rapper Isaiah Rashad embracing his sexual fluidity, the hyper machismo of hip-hop seems to be abating. And Brown, who describes herself as “black, queer and human,” is absolutely here for it.
“I’ve had a few people from other countries who have reached out,” she says. “There’s this kid in Germany who was like, ‘I really love your music. I’m also queer and trying to make music, and you really inspire me.’ That was crazy to me, because I’m not the biggest artist. Like, how did you even find me, bro?”
Brown continues to make space for other artists like herself. Every season, she and creative hub Juicebox Ent curate Low-Fye Nite, a local music showcase for mellow indie artists staged at a secret location (keep an eye on Instagram @lowfyenite for details on the June 24 edition).
As for new music, Brown is hard at work after this year’s braggadocious “Field Day.” She’s carefully weighing her next release, focused on it being “better than the last,” though some of her past work might be hard to top (See: the reference to “Henderhoneys” in “Pull Up Like MJ”).
Mostly, though, Cuddlethot wants it to take her listeners to a good place. “I just want them to feel warm,” she says. “I want my music to feel like a hug. Like they are being personally cuddled by me, Cuddlethot.”
CUDDLETHOT juiceboxent.com/cuddlethot Instagram: @cuddleth0t
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