Ashnikko

Pleasure seeker

The 25-year-old pop futurist on how writing love letters to herself boosted her confidence, and why we should all use the c-word more

Words FLORIAN OBKIRCHER

Ashnikko loves a grand entrance. At last year’s BRIT Awards, held at London’s O2 Arena in February, the singer/rapper sashayed up the red carpet wearing platform boots, with two muscular, masked men carrying her huge blue ponytails. Her message: “Down with the patriarchy.”

Flamboyance and liberal ideals didn’t feature in Ashton Nicole Casey’s upbringing in smalltown North Carolina. But it was during her teens, after relocating to Estonia and then Latvia with her family, that she discovered feminism on Tumblr and began to teach herself about gender and sexuality. At 18, Casey moved to London with a music career in her sights. She condensed all her ideas into Ashnikko, a largerthan-life character who takes visual cues from cybergoth and manga culture, and whose music merges trap beats and catchy melodies with empowering and explicit lyrics that would make a sex-ed teacher blush.

Ashnikko’s breakthrough came in 2019 when her single Stupid, with US rapper Yung Baby Tate, went viral on TikTok; the track has gained gold certification in the US, and, to date, its video has more than 53 million YouTube views. She began this year with the release of her debut mixtape, Demidevil, which features fellow pop futurist Grimes. Here, Ashnikko, 25, talks about toxic relationships, the key to self-love, and VR sex toys…

the red bulletin: More than two million young women, including Miley Cyrus, have created TikTok videos based on your lyric “Stupid boys think that I need them.” How did you come up with that line?

ashnikko: I had been talking to my ex on the day of the recording. His whole attitude was very smug, like he gifted me our relationship and I couldn’t survive without him, which I found hilarious. I’m an extremely independent and selfsufficient person. So, yeah, that’s a mentality I would love to break.

Many of your songs started out as love letters to yourself after a difficult separation, didn’t they?

That’s true: all my songs are basically love letters to myself. And this is my biggest advice on confidence: when you’re feeling really low, you might have these negative dialogues going on in your head. It’s difficult to get rid of them, so it’s important to replace them with more positive beliefs about yourself. That’s what I did with the love letters. I still do, to be fair. There are lows in life that are unavoidable, but I try to keep the balance and write myself positive pep talks, love letters, because I do love myself.

How do you write a good love letter to yourself?

Well, firstly, I don’t write them on a scroll of paper, although you can do that – it’s definitely a method. The key to a successful love letter to yourself is consistency; you need to do it regularly, or, if you can’t manage a whole letter, just write words of affirmation to yourself and read them every day.

Why is it that self-love seems to be such a difficult thing to achieve?

We don’t really live in a system that’s built for our happiness. Like, the actual algorithms in your phone are designed to keep you obsessed with comparing yourself to other people and buying things to improve your life. And obsessive habits are not conducive to confidence and feeling contentment in your life.

Sexual positivity is another big theme in your music. In Clitoris! The Musical, the final track on Demidevil, you sing: “Why is my orgasm censored on the TV, while cis boys get to ejaculate freely”…

I’ve always thought it’s hilarious that in romcoms the dudes get to be like, ‘Oh yeah!’, like coming everywhere, while women have to wear a bra in bed during sex. I mean, who wears a bra during sex? The scene lasts five seconds, then he comes and it’s all over. That’s very stupid to me. Vaginaowning people deserve pleasure. They should not be censored.

Is that why you describe your songs as ‘cuntry music’ and advocate the normalisation of that word?

The word ‘cunt’ is considered offensive and hateful, but it has feminist origins. The actual etymology of the word is ‘mother’ and ‘body of her’. But it has been vilified over the years, just like the word ‘witch’ – we can look back in history and see that women who veered off the normal path were very much deemed to be witches. Similarly, ‘cunt’ derives from power. We should say it more. I mean, look, it’s in the word ‘country’, which means motherland.

What’s next for you?

I really want to design a sex toy. For women, I think it’s very important to prioritise your pleasure and to learn about it from a young age – not in a creepy way, but sex ed should be a little bit more comprehensive.

What will your sex toy look like?

I don’t know yet. Something VR, for sure. I’ll talk to some VR specialists and get back to you. Ashnikko’s mixtape Demidevil is out now; ashnikko.com

“All my songs are basically love letters to myself”