Ashnikko Packs the Uptown

April 4, 2026

The Uptown Theater has seen a lot, but on Monday night it briefly became something else entirely…a pastel-lit parallel dimension ruled, as Ashnikko herself would put it, by rat princesses. The Demidevils of Kansas City showed up dressed accordingly. Ribbons tied anywhere they’d hold, googly eyes glued to cheekbones, boots wrapped in craft paper, trinkets dangling from every available surface of a human body. Pepsi cans adorning heads…Kansas City understood the assignment.

Princess Nokia opened with the kind of hard-hitting, unapologetic set that makes her the ideal tour companion for this run. Her October 2025 album Girls shares DNA with the Smoochies era — confident, bodily, a little feral — and by the time she left the stage, the room was already warm and ready. Though her set was abbreviated, Princess Nokia won the crowd over. Though not everyone was singing along, the Uptown was packed, and the vibes were strong. Towards the end of her set, Princess Nokia leapt from the stage, mingling with the crowd from the other side of the barricade. But not before stopping in the ADA section, and graciously accepting friendship bracelets which were being gifted to her. Truly a gracious artist, and person.

After a brief period to clear the stage, the lights dropped, and Ashnikko arrived.

The Smoochies Tour is built around her second studio album, released last October, and she performed the record generously — “Trinkets,” “Smoochie Girl,” “Sticky Fingers,” and the breathlessly horny “Wet Like” all landed hard, the production blending sleek electronic backing to give even the quieter moments some real weight. “Itty Bitty,” the single that preceded the album announcement, has become a live staple for good reason: it’s the kind of song that turns a room into a single organism without trying. “Chichinya” hit different in person, its textures more menacing than the record suggests.

But what made the night feel complete was how generously Ashnikko honored the catalog that got her here. “You Make Me Sick!” and “Worms” arrived mid-set like a gut punch, the Weedkiller material proving just as sharp as it did when those albums dropped. “Deal With It” — the Kelis collab from Demidevil — had the Demidevils losing their minds, and “Slumber Party” brought Princess Nokia back out for a moment that felt genuinely special, their chemistry onstage easy and fun and a little chaotic in the best way.

The closing stretch was exactly what it needed to be. “Stupid” blew the roof off, and “Daisy” ended things the way it always does — with Ashnikko reminding everyone that no amount of new material can retire a song that good. She plays it like she wrote it ten minutes ago.

What Ashnikko has built with this tour is less a concert and more a contained world with its own dress code, its own mythology, and its own coronation ritual. Kansas City’s Smoochie Girl of the night walked onstage, accepted her bejeweled crown with an acceptance speech that drew the loudest cheers of the evening, and took a bow while the whole room bowed back. It sounds absurd written down. It was completely, utterly perfect in practice.

The Uptown held it well. Here’s hoping she comes back.