Angel Haze

Angel Haze

Raykeea Raeen-Roes Wilson (born July 10, 1991) known professionally as Angel Haze, is an American rapper and singer. In 2012, Wilson released the EP Reservation and later signed a record deal with Universal Republic Records before moving to Republic Records. On December 31, 2013, Wilson released their debut album Dirty Gold, which featured the singles “Echelon (It’s My Way)” and “Battle Cry.” Wilson has released a number of mixtapes, including Reservation, which was ranked the sixth-best mixtape of 2012 by Mike Diver of the BBC, the most recent one Back to the Woods appeared in 2015.

Wilson raps about themes such as homophobia, rape culture and racism. They use their personal experiences to condemn a culture that breeds the self-harm of queer youth. Wilson has also been open about their experience with mental illnesses such as addiction, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression and anorexia in their music and in interviews and social media.

Wilson sees their goal as an artist to reach out to people who are similar to them or going through difficult experiences. They said, “It’s not about the Bible. It’s not about going to church. It’s not about anything other than that we are all energies connected with a force that’s greater than us. It’s an energy that’s omniscient, it covers the whole world, and everybody here is created for a reason. Mine happens to be to make the music and inspire the people who are stuck in dark places.”

In a 2014 Vice column, Wilson discussed cultural appropriation and white artists making hip hop, saying “There seems to be this hypocrisy because people want to appropriate black culture but only when it’s cool or beneficial to them … And that’s the reason that people don’t have a right, to some extent, to use black music to their own gains.”

[source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angel_Haze]