682. Saweetie

Her name is sweet. At least I think that’s what’s going on behind the naming behind the name.

This gal has entertainment in her blood being none other than MC Hammer’s niece. That’s hip hop royalty right there peeps.

So in the rap hip hop space Saweetie is the young kid on the block, all of 27. There’s Nikki Minaj, Cardi B, Megan Thee, and from another era of course the queen of the Hip Hop Bad Girl space, Missy Misdemeanor.

The first song I heard from Saweetie was on the epic rap road trip to Vegas with Z. Lil’ Mosey out of Seattle concert. The youngsters freaking love this “raps” stuff and the DJ was warming up the 12 – 18 year old crowd and over the speakers pops Saweetie’s Icy GRL. Hey alternate spellings in the raps be cool man. They be cool. Grammar is just the man holding these teens down with their middle class bourgeois agenda!!

So there I was 50 year old, or so, man at the edge of the front row becoming that old dude that can retrieve water for Z and his new friends from the bar…. they also asked for gum, I gave them a pack I had, the gal took a piece and then proceeded to pass it around. They did leave me one piece. Teens and their rapz!!! Am I right here?

So ICY GRL comes on and the sea of teens start losing their ever-loving teen minds. All the words, the whole crowd knows all the words. Last time I witnessed something like this was seeing a “Dashboard Confessional,” MTV unplugged performance. When you get a large group of teens knowing all the words to all your songs…. that’s when artists and the hoi polloi realize, there’s something going down.

Here’s something from the internets you may find interesting about this young lady:

Diamonté Quiava Valentin Harper was born on July 2, 1993 in Hayward, California to Trinidad Valentin, her Filipina-Chinese mother and Johnny Harper, her African-American father. She grew up in the Central Valley, attending Merrill F. West High School in Tracy and graduating from Monterey Trail High School in Elk Grove. She began writing music at age 13. After high school, she went on to attend San Diego State University, where she studied communications and business before transferring to the University of Southern California, where she completed her degree and received a Bachelor of Arts (BA) in communications.

Saweetie began posting short raps on her Instagram account in 2016. One video featured her rapping over the beat from Khia’s “My Neck, My Back (Lick It)”, which would eventually turn into “Icy Grl”. The song was released on her SoundCloud in the summer of 2017, and brought her to the attention of Max Gousse, a well-known producer and A&R executive, who became her manager. The video for the song went viral on the Internet and went on to accrue 100 million views on YouTube as of June 2020.

To follow that up, Saweetie released in that same month a freestyle rap called “High Maintenance” accompanied by a short clip of herself rapping a verse to the song, all while chilling in her kitchen. It would go viral on Instagram and Twitter as well. In October 2017, she released a video for her song, “Focus”, which samples DRAM’s “Gilligan”.

In January 2018, she was named Tidal’s Artist of the Week and one of Pigeons & Planes’ Best New Artists of the Month. During Super Bowl LII in February 2018, she was featured in an ad for Rihanna’s cosmetic company, Fenty Beauty. That month, she signed to Warner Bros. Records (since May 2019 Warner Records) and her manager Max Gousse’s record label Artistry Worldwide.

I do a lot of covers but this is the first time I’m actually doing original content. I leave the studio and I come home wanting to listen to really myself.

— Saweetie for XXL in October 2017.

In February 2018, Saweetie launched her own record label, called Icy Records.

Saweetie released her major label debut EP, High Maintenance, on March 16, 2018. It is composed of nine tracks and was produced by CashMoneyAP, Nyrell, and Saweetie’s cousin, Zaytoven. The single, “Icy Girl” was certified Gold in June 2018, for sales of 500,000 in the US. In September 2019, the single was certified RIAA multi-platinum and reached #1 on Billboard’s rhythmic songs airplay chart.

And this pic again just because I freaking like it:

Diamonté Quiava Valentin Harper, Saweetie, a good thing.