Ayesha Nicole smith, commonly known as Ayesha erotica, was a controversial transgender hyperpop singer, songwriter and producer who left the public eye in late 2018.

But what is hyperpop? Hyperpop is a fairly modern genre of music, very open and flexible. A staple in the LGBTQ+ community often showcasing many talented gay and trans artists. Hyperpop can be described as a type of music that takes an element of pop music to the extreme. This is where the flexibility of hyperpop comes from, as there are all sorts of songs, some leaning to a more futuristic modern sound, for example "faceshopping" by SOPHIE, or others achieving a more 2000s style quintessential "Paris Hilton" sound, for example most of Ayesha Erotica's discography.

The "sixteen" singer began her career in 2015, releasing tracks on Soundcloud, a platform used by many aspiring, on the rise and independent musicians. In 2016 however was when her first debut album was released titled "big juicy" consisting of 8 hyperpop tracks including "coked up", "cocaine superstar" "Cadillacs" and the fan favourite "sixteen". This album was well received and personally-I love the confidence-boosting, energetic sound of the album and still listen to this day along with many other fans across the world. She went on to produce many more projects such as "barely legal" and "cumshot" the same year.

In 2017 we saw more work from Ayesha, some skit EP's, one titled "where is that damn baby?" currently known to be an inside joke between Ayesha and friends, alongside another EP titled "www.f***me.com". Whilst these didn't receive the same level of acclaim, they were still well received by fans. However, it was her now well-known single "Literal Legend" that gained her recognition outside her niche fan base.

This flamboyant, diverse and dynamic song got Ayesha a lot of the fame she has today, and many of the verses from this song were extremely popular on the video sharing platform: Tik Tok. In fact, one audio containing a verse from "literal legend" has been used across over 44,000 different videos on the app!

This brings us to 2018, a year full of highs and lows for Ayesha Erotica, ultimately being her last year as an active artist.

This year saw large amounts of development and experimentation in her career, going on to produce songs for many artists as well as vocally featuring on some tracks, particularly with artists such as That Kid and her friend Slayyyter. However, her most notable release of the year was the release of "vacation bible school" (first surfaced in 2018, official release 2020/21). This is one of her most famous songs gaining widespread attention, especially, once again, on Tik Tok being used in approximately 25,000 videos. This single was scheduled to be featured on her latest album, which was never officially released, titled "horny.4u".

So now we know more about the "y2k" hyperpop icon, lets investigate why Ayesha's seemingly thriving career never developed past 2018.

The loud brash unique persona we see through her music is not all there is to the artist. Unfortunately, there have been many upsetting accusations made against her. For example, she has said unacceptable racial slurs many times, mocked Mexican culture and drag queens as well as partaking in blackface. All of these issues were sadly never directly addressed. Despite these awful claims, she was still rising to fame, seemingly unstoppable- that was until the doxing scandal of 2018.

Throughout the year, there had been attempts to doxx (leak private/sensitive information) Ayesha, in march 2018, a boy going by the name of "Void4angel" (for simplicity I will be referring to him as "Void") made the first doxx attempt, admittedly failing miserably, only leaking Ayesha's family members public social media accounts via a site called "doxxbin" although this seemingly harmless event seems miniscule, it was the trigger to a chain of much more serious actions, such as Ayesha leaking very sensitive information about another person (and their whole family) who she believed to be the person who doxxed her.

As revenge, demos of her upcoming songs were released without authorization from Ayesha herself, as well as a leak containing personal information and pre-transition photos, causing the cancellation of "horny.4u" and her eventual demise. Although later a statement from Ayesha was released explaining her need for privacy and that she will not be returning to music. Of course, fans were distraught but understanding, here are some tweets in response to the statement:

"girl,,, nothing has broken me like this has :((("

"she is immensely underrated and i hope nothing but the best for her! ppl def need to give her space and respect her boundaries"

":( she's one of my biggest inspirations idk what I'm going to do without her :( life goes on i suppose but knowing she's not coming back changes things. i hope she goes on to happier times without this community. people can be so cruel sometimes"

As you can see here, Ayesha had quite the cult following, and this following has only grown to this day.

The last we have seen from Ayesha Erotica was when she made an appearance at a Slayyyter concert in 2019. Fans took this to mean a potential comeback from the controversial star, however Ayesha was quick to shut these rumours down stating "this if anything makes me want to comeback 100% less!" making this the last time we know of her being active on social media.

Today, her songs are still available on SoundCloud, YouTube and even a few are available on Spotify, yet she remains absent from all social media.

Despite the controversy and clear wrongdoings of Ayesha, her unique style has undeniably made a huge impact on the hyperpop genre, bringing attention and new fans, as well as popularizing the "quintessential 2000s" aesthetic, not to mention her maintaining relevance after years of absence. To me, this highlights how powerful the internet can be, positively or negatively, in that it can make or break a person's whole career and can allow anyone to be seen in any way they want.

In Ayesha's case not much other than the lewd topics in her songs was known about her. Ultimately portraying her as borderline inhuman, and this coupled with her being absent, massively stresses her intangibility and illustrates her to be almost alien, in effect, idolising her.

This is of course controversial when considering all the obscene and offensive things she has said and done, which is where we being to think about separating the music from the artist, is this at all possible? While her music is still enjoyable, in my own opinion it is still very important to hold her accountable, as we would with anyone else. Of course, she was a talented singer and producer, but whether this is enough to overlook her actions and continue supporting her is at last a personal, moral decision.

There is a plethora of opinions circulating around this topic, feel free to leave some of your own!

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