5/21/2023 2 Comments Sweetie the rapper![]() They’re all black, they’re successful, they’re just doing their thing, and it’s just dope to see them thriving.ĪBRAHAM: What were you going to do with your degree before you decided to pursue music? A lot of my colleagues I went to school with, I’m still cool with them. ![]() Nothing was touching a USC diploma, ya know? I loved it. So, I decided to thug it out, and get this degree. I was like alright, I’m at the number one communications school in the country, and that was my major. So I was like, alright, I’m going to apply to USC, and If I don’t get in-I’m dropping out of school, and I’m pursuing music. SAWEETIE: Girl, so I was going to San Diego State, right? It was a great school, but I didn’t like being in that college. Many students with aspirations in the entertainment or music industry tend to leave school prematurely, what convinced you to stay in school and get your Bachelor’s degree? What kind of finalized it was, my step-mom had gotten me a nameplate my sophomore year of high school, one of those gold ones.ĪBRAHAM: You went to the University of Southern California. So people would just be like, “Yo, Sweetie,” and I would be like “Oh, wassup!” It kind of just stuck. So I put it on my myspace, and I’ve mentioned in other interviews as well that my myspace was poppin. SAWEETIE: My grandmother used to call me Sweetie, and I really loved it. TAMEKA ABRAHAM: What inspired your artist name? With her effortless charisma and deep understanding of what makes a song tick-in an interview with Billboard, her manager called her a “student of the game”-don’t be surprised if she’s a household name before long. Now, the USC grad is gearing up to release her debut EP, titled High Maintenance, later this month. Her video for the song took off late last year, eventually gaining 15 million views and landing her a contract with Warner Bros Records. Saweetie’s magnetic charisma lends a chic strut to her bravado “All these girls excited / Oh ya know they like it / I’m so icy, so icy,” she rhymes. The Bay Area native burst into the limelight with her 2017 single “Icy Grl,” which flips the beat from Khia’s gonzo 2002 single “My Neck, My Back,” into something entirely different. “Because I’m opening a door for my community, people of my culture.Saweetie is a magnetic young rapper with a surplus of personality. “I’m proud to be iconic to people, or to be making history to people or people seeing me as a future icon or future legend,” he says. Santana has since become a leading voice in the LGBTQ+ community, becoming one of the faces of Coach’s annual PRIDE campaign, and landing Teen Vogue and PAPER magazine covers in June. (The two even have even joined forces on a forthcoming song together called “Down Souf Hoes,” expected to come out later this year). When rapper Lil Nas X came out as gay in 2019 on the heels of his (now) 16x-platinum single “Old Town Road” it made major headlines across the globe and opened doors for more young, Black, LGBTQ+ rappers like Santana. Unlike many of his sources of inspiration, Santana identifies as gay-a rarity in the world of hip-hop. ![]() ![]() Growing up in Florida, he attributes his sound-a style he describes as “women empowerment” anthems mixed with a little bit of “talking trash” and “not taking no for an answer”-to early-2000’s rap sensations Trina, Jacki-O, and Khia.
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