Sex-positive rapper cupcakKe is back with an exuberant third album of her trademark bold, cartoonish raunch. Ephorize is teeming with brash bars like “I only call you Captain, ’cause your dick is off the hook” (Duck Duck Goose), but for all the comic – if vulgar – bravado, there’s a directness to her words, a new inwardness (“Most people already skipped this song, ’cause it ain’t about sex and killing,” Self Interview tellingly observes). With charged production that flits between old-school hip-hop, futuristic pop and even Latin, at 15 tracks it can feel diluted, but there’s no doubt cupcakKe is a potent MC on the rise.
