Discorder Magazine
Sept-Oct 2021
KICCC WORDS BY ERIKA ENJO // ILLUSTRATION BY HAYLEY SCHMIDT PHOTOS BY AUGUST BRAMHOFF // LAYOUT BY R. HESTER //
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Femininity can be aggressive and intimidating. Glitch-pop artist Carson Cheng’s — or KICCC’s — latest song “MRKMI” owns this sentiment and empowers femininity, turning it into a weapon. The track kicks off with snarky lyrics, rejecting toxic masculinity which is sugar-coated in high-brand fashion. The track’s heavy, low beat is reminiscent of a nightclub full of neon lights — but it also expresses something deeper. Some kind of new-found power. KICCC is a non-binary Canadian-Chinese singer, who grew up in Vancouver and Macau. They graduated from the University of British Columbia, where they studied interdisciplinary performance art. “MRKMI” is from their latest album Area 27, which uses very fluid, poppy and futuristic synthesizer sounds, and deviates from their previous, more masculine style of music. They agreed to sit with me — over a laptop screen — to discuss their latest release. Erika: Thank you so much for setting aside time for us! Alrighty — let me first ask what your pronouns are to get this interview started. Carson: It's a bit of an interesting thing that I'm still navigating. I think my [pronouns] are more like, “I don't really care.” My most correct pronoun, I guess, is Carson because that’s my given name. I never really went out of my way to change how people called me. I’m comfortable with he/she/they as long as it comes from a respectful place. This is just a personal choice, and maybe it's
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because of my background as a performance artist. Performance and acting are all actually very neutral. It's that we gender it, either by giving it a meaning, or assigning it feminine or masculine. When I go about my day I'm not in a fixed state. Maybe for different purposes I'm a different weight. That’s how I see myself, because, in the last little while, I've been experimenting more with my image or how I present myself. Of course, I recognize this as a privilege, that I'm able to be in a safe environment where I can be so transient in my states.
the past, I would have felt ashamed due to the social constructs and constraints in the industry I was working in. After university, I started working as an actor in Hong Kong and during that time, as a queer person, I essentially had to go back into the closet, or really just filter a lot of things and be this blank canvas. I was just starting out in the industry, and people had so many ideas of who I should be. But I'm a human with experiences. I'm a human with thoughts. I found it very hard to put that all away. So, I think working on Area 27 was a bit of a death of all of those constraints […] I suddenly found a new power. Just like, “oh, I didn't know I could perform this way, I didn't know I could look this way.” You know? It's fun. It's refreshing, and I feel powerful.
Speaking of the change in your style, I have noticed that with Area 27, the melodies tend to be more poppy, cheerful and futuristic, right? And the visuals featured playful makeup, beautiful nails and costumes, and I think it’s a lot more feminine compared to your previous albums. I was curious I listened to your previous album The what the intention behind all these Water Knows too, and, comparing the changes was. two albums, I noticed a change in lyrics as well. Previously, there were more With my new work, I was trying conventional love-song lyrics. to honor the part of myself that, in
“KICCC”
