THEEsatisfaction is all about community-building, but that doesn’t mean rapper Stasia “Stas” Irons and singer Catherine “Cat” Harris-White are above dropping a diss track.

“Blandland”, found on the duo’s latest album, EarthEE, takes aim at those who claim hip-hop as their own without fully earning the privilege. Stas’s lyrics don’t seem to have any specific target, but when Ishmael Butler of Shabazz Palaces drops a guest verse about someone “Bouncing round lookin’ like Hitler Youth”, it’s hard not to picture a certain Grammy-winning white MC and his signature haircut.

Reached by phone in Dallas, Texas, THEEsatisfaction will neither confirm nor deny that “Blandland” was inspired by fellow Seattleite Macklemore, but Stas and Cat have been quite candid in the past about their opinion of the artist also known as Ben Haggerty. In short, they’re not fans, but they say they don’t begrudge him his success.

“We’ve known about his music for a long time, and he’s been doing music in Seattle specifically for the past decade, so I feel like he’s due his shine, I guess,” Stas says. “Like, I’m not trying to dim anyone’s light, you know? I feel like there’s a lot of other people who will also get to shine, and when it happens it’ll be great. I’m just not personally a fan of his music.”

Adds Cat: “People work for what they want to be, and he’s totally a pop icon. He’s a Justin Timberlake or an Elvis kind of character. Seriously. I don’t even know if that would be considered a diss. Those people are really popular and are cultural icons of their times, so, you know—kudos.”

Produced by THEEsatisfaction and Erik Blood, EarthEE—a wild blend of jazz-inspired textures and mind-expanding synthesizer tones that could be described as “cosmic R&B”—concerns itself with matters that are arguably more crucial than Macklemore’s street cred. From the promo photos of Stas and Cat standing in what looks like an abandoned urban greenhouse to tracks with titles like “No GMO” and “Planet for Sale” and liner notes dedicating the LP in part to “the seed planters”, EarthEE has an overarching theme that is distinctly, well, earthy.

“My mom actually has this really sweet garden, and she used to garden when I was a kid,” Cat reflects. “I’m originally from Hawaii and I live in Seattle, so I’m very used to nature and being around plants, and what I feel like Earth looked like originally. I’m used to those kinds of vibes, so when I think about our projects, and this music, a lot of our music is based around living on Earth. I mean, everyone’s music is about living on Earth, but really, ours is about our experience of being humans on the planet in a very direct manner.”

Specifically, these songs are rooted in the pair’s own experiences as queer women of colour. In the culture at large, and in hip-hop in particular, such voices often get drowned out, but thanks to the exposure afforded THEEsatisfaction as Sub Pop signees—to say nothing of their own tireless social-media presence—Stas and Cat are being heard.

“We definitely have people that hit us up and tell us that our music has touched them in a certain way, or they thought that they were alone in their thoughts and they didn’t know that other people were thinking about some of the same things,” Stas says. “That’s the reason why we actually do music—just so that we don’t feel alone, and that we’re not isolated. We can reach out and find other people that share that sort of vibe.”

THEEsatisfaction opens for Sleater-Kinney at the Commodore Ballroom on Wednesday (May 6).