Lil Debbie at Fortune Sound Club, Vancouver, Feb. 27 2015. Kirk Chantraine photo.

Review and photos - Lil Debbie at Fortune Sound Club, Vancouver, Feb. 27 2015

– review by Taisuke Tanimura/photos by Kirk Chantraine

It’s pointless to subject Lil Debbie‘s music to any sort of analysis. Her tracks are created to be enjoyed on a purely visceral level, to move bodies on the dance floor and get you to jump around. The beats are sparse, the bass is heavy, and her muses are money, drugs, sex and bad bitches. I’m understating when I say her take on hip-hop is devoid of any subtlety. Instead, it’s buoyed by insane amounts of swagger and don’t-give-a-shit ethos. A sampling of her song titles should give you a fair idea of what I’m talking about: “Bitches”, “Wiggle”, “$lot Machine”, “Work The Middle”.

Video – Lil’ Debbie, “$lot Machine”:

Lil Debbie, born Jordan Capozzi in Oakland, California, first gained attention as part of the Bay Area hip-hop group White Girl Mob, alongside V-Nasty and Kreayshawn (whose song “Gucci Gucci” was a viral hit a few years ago). After a falling out with her crew, Debbie went solo in 2012 and has been going strong ever since. So far she has three EPs under her belt, and her latest mixtape Young Bitch dropped late last year. She rolled through Vancouver on Friday at Fortune, playing to an inebriated and enthusiastic crowd.

I was curious to see what kind of people would show up to a Lil Debbie show and was surprised to find a large group of hardcore fans. A lot of the people knew the words to every song, shouting along with aplomb as Lil Debbie worked through her set.

True to her booty-shaking missive, Lil Debbie was onstage alongside a scantily clad dancer twerking away and a guy on laptop duty. Lil Debbie herself looked like she came straight from the gym in a croptop and blue yoga pants, and I’m pretty sure she would still be rocking the mascara and hair extensions even when she is working out. She played all of her hits, including her Riff Raff collaboration “Michelle Obama”. There was no set list – Lil Debbie would call out songs she felt like playing and laptop guy obliged. It felt like an apt approach for someone who seems very much like the freewheeling sort. There was plenty of crowd banter, and fans were eagerly passing her blunts whenever she requested one. People came to get down, and Lil Debbie delivered in spades

More Lil Debbie at Fortune Sound Club photos: