Leikeli47’s upcoming album Shape Up is one of Uproxx’s most anticipated hip-hop albums of spring 2022, and the masked MC dropped by The Tonight Show studio to show why. Wearing a pink Celine sweatshirt with her customary Nike Air Maxes and bandana balaclava, she performed a fiery rendition of the album’s lead single “Chitty Bang” in a stripped-down set backed by her DJ/hype man, who you may know as former annual “Rap Up” rapper Skillz(!).
The Virginia rapper — Leikeli, not Skillz — took a long and well-deserved break after her last album, 2018’s Acrylic. She reappeared in the summer of 2020 with “Zoom,” ostensibly the first single from her comeback album. However, it seemed she wanted to perfect the album in question, heading back to the studio for another year and a half before returning with “Chitty Bang” in January this year. Shortly afterward, she announced the release date for Shape Up (May 13) with the single “BITM.” The most recently released single, “LL Cool J,” continued Leikeli’s tradition of mystery. Now, with the album right around the corner, it’s time to see whether Shape Up is worth the wait — and judging from the output so far, it should be.
Watch Leikeli47 perform “Chitty Bang” on The Tonight Show above.