Trap Beat Tranny (TBT 4 da cissies!)

TRAP BEAT TRANNY Image: Kayce Kvacek Photography

Trap Beat Tranny (aka DESPOINA, TBT 4 DA CISSIES!) is a former Boston-based, now NYC-based, Black trap Doll. Despoina writes rap bops that make you wanna throw ass or throw hands (or I’m throwin yo ass OUT!)

TBT popped out in 2019 with the Femmetasy mixtape, a mixed medium rap and poetry tape musing on what Black trans femme survival looks like in the 21st century. Playing a few small shows and getting some press coverage in local Boston papers and independent music blogs, her single "Hex Ur Ex" from that project did numbers after placement on a Spotify editorial playlist in 2020-remaining her top streamed song to this day and earning her coverage in Bandcamp Daily. After spending 2020 and all of lockdown experiencing, witnessing, and writing about the violence Black trans people face online, they began uploading their discography to Bandcamp and using half of all proceeds for mutual aid to support other Black trans people.

They would later return in 2021 with their debut album CYBERBULLY, receiving press coverage in Dig Boston as well as the Boston Globe and going on to perform at Trans Resistance MA's 2nd Annual Trans Resistance March in Franklin Park, Massachusetts. Recently having relocated from Boston, Massachusetts to New York City, Trap Beat Tranny is hard at work finishing an EP and developing an upcoming virtual concert-she looks forward to sharing her work with her communities and continuing to use her music to redistribute funds to other Black trans people in need.

£!V€ hå©K

Virtual Multimedia Concert
December 2021 (rescheduled due to COVID-19)

Live Hack is a virtual multimedia concert combining prerecorded live concert footage with music videos to celebrate the discography of Trap Beat Tranny (TBT 4 da cissies!). From the Femmetasy mixtape to TBT’s debut album CYBERBULLY with even previews of what’s to come, this piece is a cybernetic vision of a world not unlike our own but dressed in the dreams of Black trans futures within systems that deem our death as fuel for the engine.

The filming took place in December 2021 at the Goethe-Institut. The video will be released in March 2022 and shared on this website. The residency was postponed from 2020 to 2021 due to COVID-19.

Participants:
Performer: Trap Beat Tranny
Backup Dancer and Costume Design: Khadija Bangoura
Backup Dancer: Oreine Robinson
Director: Sarah Shin
Dramaturg, Choreographer, Projections Operator: Joey Cosio-Mercado
Producer, Project Manager, Lighting Designer, Assistant Choreographer: Andrea Sala
Scenic Design: Steven Doucette
Audio Technician: Grace Hill
DJ: Chelita

 

 

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