On top of being known for her witty rhymes and her sweet and funny personality, Princess Nokia’s personal style, reminiscent of the ’90s easy coolness, keeps her fans always wanting more. After releasing chart topping album last year, Nokia is back in the new year with her very first beauty collaboration, with none other than NYX Professional Makeup.
Being that a glossy colored lip is her absolute go-to, it was obvious that her namesake collection for the brand would center lip kits. “While I love makeup and all things beauty, am by no means an expert! I wasn’t even allowed to wear makeup growing up! With that said, my style is not super ‘glam’ or fancy,” Nokia shared with NYLON over Zoom.
With over half a year in the making, the four-shade lip-kit collection — that features Nokia’s favorite shades of NYX Cosmetics Shine Loud High Shine Lip Color with a complimenting shade of the Slim Lip Pencil to match — instantly sold out following its initial launch on January 25. (The brand released a second drop on January 31, still available in-store and online at Ulta.com.)
The shades range from a soft brown to a deep purple that we’re inspired by some of the artist’s favorite beauty inspirations from the ’90s and early ’00s. “I loved beautiful Black and Afro-Latino supermodels like Naomi Campbell and Brandi Quinones. Those two women, and even Tyra Banks, are the peak of ’90s Brown excellence, fashion, glamour, nude aesthetics,” she shared with NYLON. “I even think of women like Jennifer Lopez, Ashanti, Christina Milian, Lisa Ray—there’s just so many beautiful women I grew up loving that were just so glamours and gorgeous to me.”
For Nokia, this collection means more to her than just putting her name out there. “I do brand endorsement stuff all the time, but this is something extremely personal. I wasn’t just modeling, I was creating products of my own,” she told NYLON. “There was a lot of different directions as to where we could go, but I chose this specifically. I just thought, like that’s the most universal makeup product for women of color and for all ages. It’s lipstick and lip gloss so there’s something here for everybody.”
To celebrate the lip-kit collection and her first beauty collaboration with NYX Cosmetics, Princess Nokia sat down to do NYLON 19, sharing her fav boozy drink — along with what she does to cure her hangover from it — and why she relates to Mr. Krabs so much.
1. What’s your astrological sign and do you believe in it?
I am a Gemini sun, a Scorpio rising, a Sagittarius moon, and a Cancer in Mercury. And honey, yes, I do.
2. Do you believe in ghosts and have you ever seen one?
I do believe in ghosts. I believe in spirits and in the afterlife, which is usually what ghosts are. They’re spirits in the afterlife that want to stay on the earthly plane and feeling like they have work to do here or maybe stuck here in certain ways or just kicking it on earth and don’t want to send into the planes. And I don’t think I’ve … I’ve seen aberrations. It’s a bit different. I think ghost is more on the Ouija Board. And you know we don’t deal with that.
3. What’s your favorite go-to drink order, and if it’s boozy, what’s your go-to hangover cure?
My favorite go-to drink order is a mango margarita with sugar or salt on the rim, side of lime, with a side of a Corona.
And my hangover cure is lots of potatoes, lots of greens, lots of garlic. Then I do juices. I make a hangover cure. So I’ll do cucumber and lime or just a lot of lime water. And I’ll take my vitamins and I will blend them together. So I’ll juice a lot of alkaline water and put a lot of lemon into it, and then I’ll just crack in Ashwagandha and vitamin C and I’ll take some charcoal pills. And then just flush it out my system.
4. Who would be the three headliners of the music festival of your dreams?
Holy shit. Okay. This is hard.
Oh Lord. The three headliners that I would choose would be Incubus, Lauryn Hill, and SZA because I went for alternative, favorite rap, and favorite modern person.
5. What’s the weirdest snack that you make?
The weirdest snack that I make is, I wouldn’t say it’s weird, I just, I eat a lot of toast. I eat a lot of toast and a lot of bread and butter. Because I’m Caribbean, we eat a lot of bread and butter.
It’s not the best on the gut, I’ll be honest with you. That’s why I call it weird. It’s a lot of bread.
6. What’s a bad habit of yours?
Scratching my eczema.
7. Describe your worst date in three words.
Waste of time.
8. What was your first concert and what are your memories of it?
Oh my god. My first concert was the metal band, Kittie, at BB King’s 42nd Street, 2007. I was 15 years old and it was a metal concert that I went with my first boyfriend. I was in foster care and I knew I wouldn’t be able to go. So I asked my dad if I could go with him on the weekend and if he could take me to the concert and drop me off, and he did.
It was a lot of fun. I got to see my favorite metal band of all time play, they’re also an all female band too. So I just remember being so … I felt liberation. I was doing something behind my foster mother’s back. I was at a concert for the first time—and that really set off my love for going to concerts. I went to concerts for a long period of time, and going to shows. And I just remember feeling free. Free, free, free.
9. What was your favorite movie as a kid?
Harriet the Spy and Matilda.
10. What’s your favorite meme or internet joke and why?
My favorite meme probably was the Mr. Krabs frozen because that’s literally my reaction to a lot of stuff. Yeah. And then the Carole Baskin one is, I think, close second because we all know she did it. We all know.
11. What is your favorite red carpet look of all time worn by someone else?
I hate to be niche, but the JLo Versace dress is just really … in theory now, it doesn’t look as revealing as it was, but it was a risk to take. I think, for a woman who had just been entering [the world] like a serious singer and actress, and I think it was such a risk-taking move. And it worked out really well. She looked really good in it. It was a plunging, plunging neckline, and that’s something that goes really fast.
12. What is one thing everyone should buy that is under $10?
Oh, produce. Fruits and vegetables.
13.What piece of clothing from high school do you wish you kept?
My first pair of Vans that my grandma threw out. They were clear checkerboard, and I painted them rainbow. And they had had deep holes on the sides that my pinkie [toes] were coming out of and I didn’t care. She threw them in the incinerator.
14. What is one question you never want to be asked again?
Is it true that I’m white? I don’t like to be asked that because I’m a woman of color and it erases the fact that I am a woman of color.
15. What is your go-to sad song?
“Sea of Love” by Cat Power
16. What is your best beauty tip?
Drink as much water daily as one can and remove all makeup before sleep.
17. What is your favorite fast food place and what’s your order there?
I don’t eat fast food, so I don’t have an answer for that, actually.
18. What was your first AOL screen name?
MinnieMeAngel123
19. What is your favorite pair of shoes that you own and why?
My favorite pair of shoes that I own are my Ben & Jerry’s Nike SB Dunks.
They’re fucking cool. I went to the Ben and Jerry’s factory when I was a teenager in Vermont. And I love the Ben and Jerry’s brand. They’re two hippies who created this ethical ice cream brand that happened to just go really mainstream in the United States. But it was created by two hippies and they do a lot of ethical practicing in their factory. They give a lot of jobs to inmates and people of color, and they’re just a really good foundation to which that brand was created.
I just remember loving how liberal and progressive Ben and Jerry’s was. That was so impressionable on me as a child. And then, yeah, I don’t know, I just loved that. And then the collab was such a great shoe. The cow print, the chocolate, just really reminds me of the packaging. And it’s just really great art recreated.
