by NARCEL X

Growing up with a big sister is such a blessed experience. The key lesson I learned from her mistakes was how to get away with them the second time around. Sharing the same blood, emitting the same damn funk on the world—there’s nothing like it. Parlayin’ with 26-year-old Melisa Young, aka Kid Sister—she of the breakout MySpace hit “Let Me Bang”—really took it back home.

“My brother and I argue about onions and shit. CVS? Naw, get them fancy ones! We argue over silly things,” Young admits about the sibling rivalry with her collaborator/brother, while adding the final spices to their spaghetti dinner. “I’m Kid Sister because we wanted to confuse people. I’m actually older than him. I’m glad I am—I’m too much of a control freak!”

This family is constantly adding flavour to the scene. Josh Young—aka J2K, one half of Chi-town DJ duo Flosstradamus as well as Kid Sister’s DJ—is with his sister, pulling salmon out the oven, as she reminisces about their hip hop schooling. Growing up in Markham, Illinois, the Youngs came up in a rural environment where the arts were a prominent part of their education. She started acting in plays and musicals at school, while also listening to Doggystyle and The Chronic. “I still have Cashmere tapes! I have the Perculator mixtape from when I was in seventh grade somewhere in here. Music-making came naturally out of that—I was working three jobs, getting no sleep and watching friends of mine make music, money and having a blast. I saw Josh doing it and it just felt right.”

While slangin’ baby clothes in the AM, she would perform alongside her brother et al., rocking mics till the next shift. They even popped Montreal’s electro-hop cherry in September. This Friday is their second Montreal performance, with the help of her “superfriends,” as she calls them, over at Peer Pressure. She says Montreal is where she met some of her closest peeps. “That poutine is boom! You guys got heart, good music and gravy, baby! What else do you need?”

Entering the insecure, chameleon environment of the music business is something Young knows she can’t get too comfortable with, but as long as her camp is around her and she’s having fun, she’s “scraight,” as they say in the Midwest. “This all happened through being surrounded by good people, hard work and passion—and MySpace!”

With help from the likes of Prefuse73 and XXXchange of Spank Rock, Kid Sister’s forthcoming debut album promises to bring out the interconnectedness of our generation’s culture mash, with influences ranging from punk to hip hop. She’s even got a brand new track with sunglasses/scratch master A-Trak recorded just this past Saturday, a follow-up to their collab “Damn Girl.”

Excited by the prospects of success, Kid Sister still faces the humbling reality of the dolla dolla bill, y’all. “Quote me on this: I have no phone, no Internet, no cable television at home. How am I supposed to have swagger like this? So bogus! But, I confess, I’m on the come-up. I got fancy shoes!”

You know you got stee, girl. Give her a couple months and watch that style get cramped harder than dancefloors at her brothers’ parties. All it’ll take is letting her bang a bit more.

With A-Rock and Hatchmatik at Academy
on Friday, Dec. 15, 10 p.m., $10

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