On her song 'HEROINA,' the rebellious singer Tokischa embraces vulnerability

The Dominican singer Tokischa built her career through a series of transgressions: mostly rapping, nay, wailing about her insatiable sex drive with a level of raunchiness that could make even the most liberated listener raise an eyebrow.

Although she's exactly the kind of woman reggaetoneros have been waxing poetic about for three decades, Toki's willingness to put words (and moans) to the dirtiest thoughts that cross her mind — not to mention equally racy videos and performances, like when she's gotten down on all fours to drink water from a dog bowl onstage — has often made her a controversial figure in Latin music.

Since she broke into the mainstream five years ago, Tokischa has embraced that reputation like a badge of honor. Why wouldn't she? Rising as dembow's freakiest diva has earned collaborations with A-listers including Rosalía, Madonna and A$AP Rocky. It's also made her one of the most defiant voices in Caribbean urbano, a queer and femme-forward champion of the genre's erotic grittiness even as it scales into a global phenomenon with Top 40 radio play.

It would be safe to assume, then, that the provocateur's long-awaited debut album AMOR & DROGA, released on April 16, would follow a similar blueprint. Instead, Tokischa veers in a different direction. While there's plenty of playfully explicit lyricism across the EDM, rock and trap-tinged tracks of the album, she spends much of it doubling down on some of her darkest moments: a toxic relationship, a stint with substance abuse and a troubled family life that marked Toki's early adulthood.

"It feels so liberating because my whole career, I have been this sweet, funny, sexy girl that just shakes ass and talks about sexuality," she tells NPR. "But that's just a side of me that everybody knows. My other side: I'm a very emotional person. I'm a Pisces. I'm very spiritual."

On the electropop ballad "HEROINA," Tokischa leans into that lesser-known version of herself. Her voice soars across slowed synths, a heartfelt confession about not wanting to be anyone's drug or savior of choice. The song is written primarily to the ex-boyfriend who looms large over the album, the partner Toki says enabled plenty of drug-fueled partying in her early 20s. Now 30, sober and "at peace," the singer's sweeping declaration comes across as a larger reflection of her place in the industry, and the pedestal her fans might want to place her on. She says that double meaning came into full focus as she reworked and rerecorded the album last year.

"I realized that it's beyond a relationship, it's beyond a boyfriend. The system itself wants me to be a hero," she says. "Why should I be the hero? I'm not. I'm just a girl that enjoys being an artist, that is not going to respect rules."

As dembow's loudest rebel, Tokischa's already made it clear she has no regard for social norms or authority figures. But there's no brazen attitude or vulgarity here. Instead, she breaks away from her own smutty playbook and strips down to a new layer of vulnerability that turns her familiar high-pitched lilt into an expression of deep pain and desperation. That's a feeling reflected on the album cover, too. Toki poses in a white bridal gown, arms wrapped around herself as she hunches over in a howl. She says she's bared her body in so many photos and videos — she also used to have an OnlyFans — that there's nothing left to reveal.

"Everybody's seen my t****** all over the news," she says.

But screaming and crying? For Tokischa, that's a new kind of nakedness.

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