There’s something about Brittani Nichols. While her first feature film, Suicide Kale, was making its way around the LGBT movie circuit this year and carting home truckloads of trophies, Brittani was also starring on Transparent, doing stand-up in Los Angeles, writing a TV show, crafting a beloved and critically-acclaimed Hamilton podcast, organizing entertainment for A-Camp, and making everyone’s Best of Twitter lists. She’s a critically acclaimed writer and performer who’s making Hollywood pay attention by not playing by Hollywood’s rules.

But there’s something else about Brittani Nichols that I finally, fully understood when I was sitting around a campfire with her earlier this fall: She’s one of the hardest working, most accomplished people I’ve ever met — and she’s also one of the most generous. She’s the funniest person in the room, but she laughs warmly at everyone else’s jokes. She has a million stories to tell, but she listens intently as other people tell their own. She doesn’t deflect compliments; she bounces them back at you.

Brittani’s new EP, Brittani Nichols Likes You, is the thing about Brittani Nichols. It’s sexy and it’s funny and it’s real and it’s raw and it’s further proof that she can do anything she wants to do. But it’s also big-hearted and unexpected, because even though Brittani gave the world her movie and her jokes and her hard-won wisdom this year, she felt like she needed to do more.

Sometime in Oct. I realized I hadn't made a publicly available project this past year. I didn't like that feeling. I decided to make an EP.

— Brittani Nichols (@BisHilarious) December 14, 2016

Then I died a million times but goddamnit, I did it. And I hope y'all do shit, man. Even if it might be scary or embarrassing or whatever.

— Brittani Nichols (@BisHilarious) December 14, 2016

The EP is a gift (literally: it’s free). The message of empowerment that accompanies it is a gift. And also the music, man: a gift! Brittani Nichols Likes You contains five tracks that will make you swoon and make you feel seen and make you replay them to be sure you heard the lyrics correctly. Did she just rap, “Unless you look like Ann/it’s gonna have to be a Leslie/all about consent/and usually these girls beg me?” Yes. Yes, she did. And: “You think this is kismet/come on, girl/you know I planned you.”

“Three Minutes” is quintessentially Brittani: hilarious heartthrob who won’t apologize for her success. “Live Wire” is techno-Twitter, the way you talk about that girl you’re going to get over as soon as you’re finished clowning on the ways she broke your heart. “Catch Up” is as close to a ballad as the EP gets, subdued hazy-days memories of breaking and being broken by someone who’s already as broken as you. “Dumb As Hell” is a place we’ve all been, just agreeing to be stupid for tonight. And then there’s “Yossarian,” my favorite song on the album. It’s half-pop/half-hip-hop, fully relatable ruminations on that girl who puts you in so many double-binds with her mixed messages that you start to wonder if you’re losing your actual marbles “Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t after you!” Yossarian famously proclaimed in Joseph Heller’s Catch-22.

Yossarian also said he was going to live forever or die in the attempt. There’s some of that, too, in Brittani Nichols Likes You.

“I’ve never tried this shit before, but I am still so good — how? I know that I can’t sing, but that has stopped no one, and nothing’s ever stopped me, so just grab a cold one. I can write my ass off, though; an EP in a month or so, when in that same time I wrote a movie and another show. Three minutes. Welcome.”

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