The upstairs lobby of Detroit’s Book-Cadillac is usually as quiet as a church library, but rapper Lana LaDonna is here today and radiating enough vivacity to fill up all 33 floors of the historic building. Dressed in an all-black bodysuit and mink coat, she’s the perfect combination of glamorous and provocative — kind of in a space between Dominique Deveraux and Nicki Minaj. And she shares the entertainment aspirations of both.
“My biggest overall dream is to be an EGOT recipient,” LaDonna says. “When I think about Ice Cube, Snoop Dogg, Beyoncé, Rihanna, they are people who started off as music artists but now they are literally moguls in the entertainment industry.”
A Cass Tech graduate in her early 20s, LaDonna says she has been a music fan since her pre-teens. “After I grew out of my That’s so Raven and Disney Channel era, I was a music head,” she says. “I was listening to music more than I was watching TV.”
LaDonna obtained her bachelor’s degree in journalism and mass communication from Michigan State University, sure she wanted a career in the entertainment business but unsure of the best route to get there. Along the way she was part of a show on Oh So Radio, tried a YouTube podcast, and wrote for the celebrity news website Baller Alert.
Up to this point LaDonna had never seen herself as a rapper or even considered becoming a music artist. (The closest she had come was making a twerking video to Future’s “Itchin’.”) But one evening while listening to an instrumental version of Cardi B’s “Get Up 10,” inspiration struck. “That was my favorite song at the time and I just started writing raps,” she says.
She shared the verses she penned with her crew of friends via group chat, along with friend and emcee Dave Hill. All agreed she had stumbled on hidden talent. LaDonna began spending more time putting pen to pad and in 2017 she entered a performance-based hip-hop contest hosted by CrowdFreak where the winner was awarded the opportunity to open up for Jeezy that next year at MSU. After coming out strong in the first round, LaDonna had to improvise in the second.
“I kinda did it a cappella because I didn’t even have any more material to perform,” she says. “I just had to do a freestyle that I put to a beat.”
She won the contest and opened up for Jeezy on the same stage she had received her degree from a year prior. In less than 18 months LaDonna had gone from group text to up-next.
That followed with a freestyle, then the single “Get a Check,” and finally her first project, the Dumbass N!ggas, Vol. 1 EP.
“That is my first baby,” she says through a nostalgic smile. “I feel like when I listen to that project, I just remember the fun, the feeling, just the freshness of it all.”
The project was highlighted by the track “3.5” featuring Doughboy Dre, her most-viewed video to date on YouTube. “Dre pulled up, liked it, and he did his verse,” she says. “When I first put the video out I didn’t have a YouTube presence so I put it on 4sho Magazine.”
As a rapper, LaDonna is willing to punch-in but says she often prefers to write her bars. Her creative process depends on whatever headspace she’s in at that time.
“It could be in the middle of the night and I wake up and I can’t stop writing,” she says. “Or it’s times that I’ve been in the studio for four hours and I’m trying to punch and I’m at this mic like, ‘What the fuck,’ and I can’t develop any words to come out of my brain.”
Last year LaDonna released For The Gworls volume 1, an album she calls her favorite. Lyrically, she brings her own brand of unapologetic pussy power: “Cunty” is a racy, upbeat song where LaDonna drops titillating bars over a sample of Laid Back’s “White Horse,” and on “What’s It Giving” she hardens up her flow over a piano-driven Detroit beat.
On her On The Radar freestyle she raps, “I’m drafting my starting five so niggas look alive/ If he ain’t rich or thick in the dick then he ain’t my kind.”
“I think that I am being myself,” she says confidently. “I feel like in today’s world it’s so many internet personalities or just people who act a certain way because they feel like they’ll be received a type of way, and I think what gravitates people to me is that I am me across the board.”
Over the last five years women have been making their presence known in hip-hop like never before. GloRilla, Cardi B, Latto, and Megan Thee Stallion have become fixtures on Billboard’s Hot 100, and locally music from Kash Doll, Detroit Diamond, and Pretty Brayah gets discussed and streamed just as much as their male counterparts.
LaDonna is here for all of it, and takes pride in the comradery.
“I feel like women, we are naturally competitive with one another,” she says. “But I feel like my brand in general, I don’t want to be like that. When I say I’m for the girls I mean that across the board.”
Beyond achieving her music goals, LaDonna is currently a model and content creator ro the Swank A Posh fashion brand. She says she wants to become more heavily involved in the modeling world. “That’s why I’m in the gym now making sure I stay a size 6,” she says.
She admits she should be releasing more music but after her fast start, she says she’s experienced some mild frustrations along the way.
However, LaDonna says she absolutely plans on filling up everyone’s playlists this year.
“I know that I’m that girl and no matter how slow the process seems, no matter how much on a low scale that it may seem like that we are on, I am her,” she says. “I am a force to be reckoned with.”
Lana LaDonna is set to perform as part of day two of the 313 Day festival. Doors at 6 p.m. on Friday, March 14; Masonic Temple, 500 Temple St., Detroit; 313dayevents.com. Tickets are $49-$80, or $90 for access to both days of the event.
