Socialist Pop Music and Anti-Colonization Bops: Musical Comedy with Singer Nikki Yee

Nikki Yee is a mixed race (Chinese and Serbian) musical comedian who makes striking comedic protest music. Her first EP, released last year, is described as Bob Dylan but funny and her latest single, “Radicalize” is what she likes to jokingly call “socialist pop music”. She explores themes of colonization, patriarchy, and social justice through clever happy and funny songs. Read below her artist statement on her work and her mixed identity!

“I believe in social justice and making change, however small and incremental, in any way that we can. I also believe in letting go and having a good laugh! To me, being alive is a unique mixture of darkness, beauty and hilarity. Life seamlessly carries all of these things at once and I write my music to reflect that. The topics of my comedic songs are centered around injustice but with clever and funny wording and all wrapped up in a beautiful sounding package. I am a proud mixed race person (Chinese and Serbian) although I often am mistaken for a lot of different ethnicities (we’re talking 6 out of 7 continents!). Because of this, I couple my ethnically ambiguous appearance with my comedic songwriting as a way to educate the audiences at my performances about the history of the world. I like to think of myself as a mystical musical siren: come for the mystery of my ethnicity, stay for the lesson about the horrors of colonization! The way I see it? If someone leaves my show or listens to my song having learned something whilst having a chuckle, then I did my job!”.

Her music can be found on Spotify here: https://open.spotify.com/artist/0vkddzut72fuKbfTwTe124?si=4_I_SZLKQBOW1mVQCzl5UA!