Caron Liza Geary (born 15 October 1963 in Paddington, London),[1] known by various stage names, is an English female raggamuffintoaster. She was the first white female reggae/dancehall MC.[1][6]
According to Geary, her first recorded appearance was on a cover of "Kid Ralph", a dancehall track by Little Twitch.[7][8][9] The song talks about a "legendary" homosexual figure in Jamaica's prison system.[10] She has subsequently worked as a solo artist and with other musicians, including Erasure and Boy George, who described her music as "the dirtiest 'slackest' reggae I'd heard since the seventies".[11]
Background
Growing up in Marylebone,[12] Geary lived adjacent to an after-hours party which blasted out reggae music;[12] as a result, Geary was exposed to reggae from a very young age. It is these experiences which inspired her to write the controversial song "Everything Starts with an 'E'" as part of E-Zee Possee, which was banned by the BBC because of its lyrics[citation needed][dubious–discuss] and made No. 69 in the UK Singles Chart in 1989, leaving the chart after only one week;[13] however it was re-released less than a year later in March 1990 and climbed to No. 15 on the UK chart,[13] spending eight weeks in the chart.[13]
Kinky's first solo single, the Apollo 440 produced "Get Over It",[14] reached No. 95 on the UK Singles Chart.[15] Her only solo top 75 hit, coming five years later, was Everybody, released under the name "Kinky", which charted at No. 71 on that chart.[16]
Kinky has been touring underground, occasionally providing vocals for other artists. In 1997, she took a residency in Ibiza as "the Infidel",[12] operating under the name for a week[17] before writing an album called Cantankerous and taking up the name for herself.[12] When a member of staff at Club Motherfucker described her sound as "feral pop",[7] she became "Feral" and finally ended up with "Feral a.k.a. MC Kinky"[2] and "FERALisKINKY"[18]
Artistry
Descriptions of Geary's sound have varied from a "bass driven, vitriolic sonic hybrid of grimy electronic ragga, manic house and punk rock"[6] to a "white female raggamuffin toaster".[19] Kinky has denounced these descriptions, saying "I can't be bothered with people who spend large amounts of time trying to place people and music into small and narrow categories. I do what comes naturally to me, and it usually has a combination of influences."[19]
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