MC’s MUSIC LOUNGE: It’s Bebe’s Turn
– 10 min read
It’s been a long journey for Bebe Rexha. She’s gone from songwriter behind the scenes, to charting hits as a main act. Through it all, however, she’s never gotten the success that she is due. It’s always felt like her hits are more famous than she is, and in the 10+ years she’s been releasing music she has yet to have a big album to her name. But Bebe’s hoping to change that this year with her new project DIRTY BLONDE. The visual album will follow a 26-week rollout where she will release a single and the adjacent video the following week, for all 13 tracks on the album. The best part for fans is that she will allow them all to choose which single to release next with snippets of each to be heard in the supercut she released last week when announcing the project. It’s a fun way to keep your fans invested in an entire era at a time where streaming makes everything so accessible right away.
Bebe has always been especially tuned into what her fanbase (and haters) say online, and there’s a whole world of pop girlie “stan” wars happening on a daily basis any time you log in. In Bebe’s case, the comments are relentless but she has always been able to take them in stride. The latest one however is the sometimes hilarious but semi-problematic term “khia asylum”. The term represents what fans online refer to as the imaginary jail for artists whose music is flopping on the charts. It was based off the rapper Khia whose song “My Neck, My Back (Lick It)” was a hit back in 2002 but pretty much fell off the charts immediately with the exception of a 2006 track with Janet Jackson. For obvious reasons, basing a term that refers to flopping on an actual female artist is wrong and diminishes her achievements. Given Khia’s recent transphobic and homophobic comments however, the online pop community has made an exception and chalked it up to being all in fun.
As time has gone on it has moved beyond just online fan conversations, becoming a legitimate term amongst the female artists that it pertains to. Charli XCX recently acknowledged the term in multiple interviews for her movie The Moment, even joking that for all she knows she will be sent back there and looks forward to seeing her friends. Charli famously broke out of the asylum when she released Brat in 2024. Then we have Bebe, who has not only acknowledged the term many times, but has made TikTok after TikTok about wanting to “break out” and pointing out how Charli XCX, Sabrina Carpenter and Zara Larsson have all broken out. It’s Bebe’s turn to break out and have her own taste of chart success. Tinashe and Bebe Rexha are often juxtaposed as they both have been making music for more than a decade, and Tinashe has had two back to back summer hits over the last two years. Bebe is up next, and with the hype surrounding the new music, she’s closer than she’s ever been. The tracks “Çike Çike” and “New Religion” already both have over 100,000 votes to become the next single, with the former already gaining traction online.
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