Imani Francesca Coppola (born April 6, 1978) is a musician from New York City, known for playing multiple instruments (her albums credit her for guitars, keyboards and violins) and switching between normal singing and rapping. Her style can basically be summed up as Genre Mashup or Genre Roulette: a combination of Hip-Hop, Alternative Rock, Pop, Funk/Soul and whatever else is handy, while largely falling under the umbrella of "alternative". Basically, think Beastie Boys crossed with The White Album.
She gained some fame thanks to her critically acclaimed 1997 debut Chupacabra, which spawned the hit "Legend of a Cowgirl", giving her the status of One-Hit Wonder. However, Executive Meddling on the part of Columbia Records ensued, her second album was shelved and she was dropped. She spent a long time out of the mainstream afterwards, self-releasing various albums that can be pretty hard to get a hang of.
Coppola began regaining attention in 2006 by touring with Mike Patton's side project Peeping Tom, who picked her up for his label Ipecac Recordings and put out The Black and White Album. She's since started an R&B duo with Adam Pallin called Little Jackie, who had another hit single in 2008 with "The World Should Revolve Around Me". Let's hope this won't end up a One-Hit Wonder as well.
She has released the following albums:
- Chupacabra (1997)
- Come and Get Me... What?! (2000)
- Little Red Fighting Mood (2002)
- Post Traumatic Pop Syndrome (2002)
- Afrodite (2004)
- Small Thunder (2005)
- The Vocal Stylings of Imani Coppola (2005)
- The Black and White Album (2007)
- The Stoop (2008) - Little Jackie album
- Free Spirit (2010)
Tropes:
- Easter Egg: "La Da Da" lasts 20:47 minutes in total. The song itself ends after about 4-5 minutes, and the final part is a hidden track called "My Day at the Ocean"
- Fun with Acronyms: "J.L.I.A.T.O.Y.O." means "John Lennon is a trademark of Yoko Ono," which appears on any licensed John Lennon merchandise
.
- Intercourse with You: "Keys to Your Ass".
- Lyrical Dissonance: Happens sometimes ("Let It Kill You", "30th Birthday").
- Obligatory Bondage Song: "Dirty Pictures". Sort of.
- Precision F-Strike: "Woke Up White", "One of These Days", "Black and White Jingle #1", "Black and White Jingle #2", "Dirty Pictures", "I Love Your Hair", "J.L.I.A.T.O.Y.O.". Can be a bit surprising or an outright Cluster F-Bomb if you know her only as the girl who sang "Legend of a Cowgirl".
- Record Producer: Her most commercially successful albums Chupacabra and The Stoop had Mike Mangini as producer (no, not the Mike Mangini who played drums for Extreme and Steve Vai, the one who produced Digable Planets).
- Sampling: "I'm a Tree" samples the organ riff from "Twentieth Century Fox" by The Doors, and "Legend of a Cowgirl" famously uses a sample from "Sunshine Superman" by Donovan. "I Love Your Hair" uses the famous pummeling beat of "When the Levee Breaks" by Led Zeppelin. Notably, Columbia wanted her to use more sampling for her second album, and she refused.
- Xtreme Kool Letterz: She has some songs with this, like "Naked City (Love to See U Shine)" or "Keys 2 Your Ass".
