Alessandra SignorelliWe begin on this note just with Saweetie, it’s a Sunday evening in Los Angeles, and gray rain clouds hang low over the peaks of Beverly Hills like heavy smoke. The city is quiet, cold, and altogether in rare form. This unusual weather means LA traffic is much worse than it already is on a sunny day. And this means Saweetie is an hour late to our early dinner at Dante, a chic restaurant on the roof of the Maybourne Hotel. She’s visibly bothered when she walks in, cloaked in a long black puffer coat over sweats, with her hair tossed up in a messy bun plus bangs. Her glam is low-key, with blush-dusted cheeks and eyelids winged with sleek black liner. I ask her how she’s feeling. “Girl,” she says, batting her long, silky eyelashes as she settles into the plush blue-velvet booth. “Irritated. I hate being late.”
The city may be moving at sloth speed, but Saweetie’s been working nonstop. She had a session with her trainer this morning, then an afternoon callback audition, now this interview, and a six-hour nail appointment later tonight. Six hours may seem like a massive time commitment, but for a nail art queen, it’s just another Sunday. (Today she’s wearing an all-black medium-length set, instead of her signature gem-encrusted look.)
This morning, before knocking things off her to-do list, she dropped the explosive single, “Immortal Freestyle.” On the song, over producer London on da Track’s thumping chords, Saweetie is amped up as she claps back at some of the shade directed at her throughout her career. Whether it’s false reports about first-week EP sales, criticism of her rapping abilities, or claims that pretty privilege is the only reason she’s so successful, people have tried to count Saweetie out. The new song is full of one-liners, has no hook, and is a departure from her pristine Top 40 singles — and a moment for Saweetie to get real and raw. “I know y’all bitches wish I would go model, but damn!,” she pops in a rant before the song ends, poking fun, she explains, at a backhanded compliment she’s received her entire career.
Says Saweetie, “This is probably the most positive feedback I’ve got in a while.” She funded the studio time, the music video, and her glam for the song because her label, Warner Records, didn’t want her to drop an off-cycle. But Saweetie was done waiting for approval from others, so she pushed back. It’s the most recent time in her life when she’s had to trust herself.
“The labels, they always want you to go straight pop, but the reason I came into the music industry is I love to get my thoughts off,” Saweetie explains. “My stream of consciousness is in my freestyles. It was just like, ‘I’m releasing it. I have to.’ Before we go into the radio and whatever y’all want to do that’s cool, but let me do what I like.”
She continues, “It all started with me rapping in my car. I think that’s the biggest mistake labels make these days. They take the artists away from what they’re inherently good at — the reasons their fan base fell in love with them. And I think it’s unfortunate that sometimes the art gets lost in that transition.”
In her latest single, “Richtivities,” Saweetie taps into a new pocket of confidence, doing the rich sh*t she raps about in a sequence of scenes that show her dressed in opulent threads as she twirls throughout a mansion, sips tea, and shows off her equestrian skills. She’s enjoying the soft, high-life solo — a woman who gets and has her own.
Saweetie’s status as a global artist with two Grammy nominations and five songs that have made the Hot 100 charts has schooled her on the formulaic yet admittedly effective approach the music industry takes. At this point in her career, though, it’s a method she’s conflicted about. Despite her mainstream success — or perhaps because of it — Saweetie felt she needed a year out of the spotlight to reconnect with herself and the parts of her artistry that had been lost in the matrix of becoming a star overnight. Now she’s back with even sharper vision, a budding acting career, better bars, and the grit to make this era the one that she’s been waiting for all along.
Diamonté Quiava Valentin Harper has always been a dreamer. As an only child, she made a home inside her imagination. Raised by her Filipina and Chinese mother and Black father, Saweetie and her young parents moved all over the Bay Area. As a little girl, she used art to create her world amid the constant changes happening in the one around her. “I’m a heavily left-brained individual,” she says. “I’ve always been really creative. I painted, I sculpted, I drew.”
She felt othered throughout most of her early life, whether it was for her new-girl status, her appearance, intellect, or identity. Instead of feeding the expectations of others, Saweetie has always opted to let her hard work speak for itself when people have doubted her. “I’ve always been underestimated — it’s like a recurring theme in my life. That’s why the internet don’t really bother me,” she says in an unbothered tone. “There’d be moments in classes when the white teachers would be like, ‘Does your mom do your homework for you? Because we know that you’re not this smart.’ Or when I would try out for sports, they’d be, ‘Oh, she’s a pretty girl, she probably sucks.’ It was just constant doubt, all the time. But,” she adds, “that created the confidence, created me depending on myself, and me always wanting to break boundaries.”
The resilience Saweetie cultivated in her youth has spilled over into her adult years, especially the years she’s spent as a rap artist. Before the big-time brand-partnership deals, when she was a college student majoring in communications with a concentration in business at the University of Southern California, Saweetie used her content and branding savvy to self-produce her first viral post on Instagram.
“My aesthetic when I was a broke college student had always been rich girl,” she tells me after ordering a half-dozen oysters and a mocktail. “I was sitting at the top of my Toyota Corolla and I told the photographer to only get the top part of the car because it looked very glossy underneath the palm trees. So I drove around Rodeo and found the most expensive, nice-looking street. I sat there with the bikini top. I had straightened my own hair and did my own makeup.”
Putting it on for the ’gram is one thing; creating aspirational content to manifest the life you want is another. This energy still fuels the rich girl mantras Saweetie is known for. She was far from the Black Girl Luxury lifestyle that she wanted to embody, but that was the point. She kept striving, posting videos of herself rapping in the car, and even went up to J. Cole after a concert to rap for him before he got on his tour bus. That persistence paid off: In 2018, the “Icy Grl” video went viral and changed Saweetie’s life.
Rapping about her lavish visions while wearing long platinum-blonde hair and a white floor-length fur coat launched the new rapper straight into the lifestyle she saw for herself. Shortly after that, Saweetie signed a deal, and it has been straight hits since then. First came “My Type,” in 2019, then 2020 brought “Tap In,” “Pretty Bitch Freestyle,” and “Back to the Streets,” featuring Jhené Aiko. The next year, the 2021 anthem “Best Friend,” featuring Doja Cat, came in at No. 14 on the Hot 100 Billboard Chart — and earned a 2022 Grammy nomination for best rap song. Saweetie was also up for the best new artist award that year.
She was taking over. Looking back, though, Saweetie says that, behind the scenes, the rapid ascent was difficult. “‘Icy Grl’ and ‘My Type’ blew up so quick, I was on the market almost immediately,” she remembers. “So I didn’t have time to develop.”
She didn’t feel confident in her team and, early on, there were industry executives who gave her stunted and sexist advice on how to get to the top. “I was told I should twerk more on my Instagram,” Saweetie says. “I was told that my voice was very boring. I was told that I rapped too monotone and needed more energy. I was told that I needed to share more of my life on the internet.”
“To me, music is sacred. It’s coming from your spirit. You can’t just go finish an album in a week. That’s why it’s taking me so long.”
She flutters her eyelashes before rolling her eyes, continuing, “I’m going to twerk when I want to. That’s not going to be my marketing. And if that’s what you truly love to do, then empower yourself through that. But that’s not innate to me. If I get caught at a party or if I’m turning up, okay, cool. But I’m not finna do that because you guys think I should. That’s lazy marketing.”
This is the tired idea that suggests women in hip-hop will only reach the ultimate levels of success by giving up their agency and relying solely on their sexuality. Sometimes she felt torn, Saweetie admits, and other times she politely dismissed the feedback. “Everything now just feels like, ‘Make it go viral, go viral, go viral.’ Okay, cool, go viral. But if your only intention is numbers, what about the art or the reason why we’re here today?”
Despite the mastery for producing content that Saweetie showed during the pandemic shutdown, when she hired and self-funded a team to shoot video such as her The Icy Life YouTube vlog series, nothing has ever been more important to her than the music. Not even the big coins she brought in while juggling partnership deals with McDonald’s, MAC Cosmetics, and Crocs simultaneously in 2021. She started to feel like being hyper-visible was overshadowing her craft.
“I just feel like nobody was caring about my music,” Saweetie says of the people around her at that time. “To me, music is sacred. It’s coming from your spirit. You can’t just go finish an album in a week. That’s why it’s taking me so long. That’s why I haven’t dropped an album yet.”
Saweetie’s debut album, previously titled Pretty Bitch Music, has been delayed every year since 2021. She acknowledges that she can be quite the overthinker, but intuitively, she knew her earlier compilation of songs was not album-ready. Plus, Saweetie has been jaded by the critiques on whether she is a talented artist worthy of her spot that she has to navigate every time she releases new work. “I don’t mean to dampen the mood,” she says. “But this is, realistically, how my career has been. We were constantly criticized for every drop. I was just very insecure. I’m a confident woman, but I was a very insecure artist.”
In 2021, when it was time for Saweetie to perform all the hits that audiences had already scrutinized — still without having had any intentional artist development — she learned quickly that she had not been properly prepared for the stage. After she did a few shows that year, some people were extra-critical of her dance moves and breath control. During a performance at the Triller Fight Club with Doja Cat, Saweetie recalls feeling like she hadn’t done the best job.
“I always bite off more than I can chew. I had to push myself,” Saweetie says, almost laughing as she thinks back on the show. “I was trying to dance, rap, and sing at the same time. And I was like, Hold on, girl. Pump the brakes.” So she buckled down and went on a “work vacation,” where she attended an artist boot camp so she could improve her performance.
Being onstage isn’t necessarily her natural forté, but Saweetie is real and, of course, optimistic about it. “That’s not my strength,” she says, “and that’s okay because you’re supposed to turn your weaknesses into strengths.”
While doing the best to put her artistry in her own hands, Saweetie was still taking jabs from what seemed like every angle. She was free and single for the first time in a long time, but still wading through negativity. She didn’t feel support from her team, she’d also just gone through a bad public breakup with rapper Quavo, and the hate online about whether or not she was a good artist was starting to get dark. So she turned inward, started meditating, and shaved her head.
Saweetie read that hair holds energy, so she shed all of hers to get rid of the negativity. Now she looks me directly in the eyes: “Let me tell you something,” she says, “shaving your hair don’t change your problems.” After buzzing off her curls completely, she adds, things became even more trying. “I felt like I was in a whirlwind.”
“The shower is my safe space. I love taking out a wig or a weave, washing my hair and really letting the energy off my head. I think that’s how I cope.”
But if life got harder, it was because things had become clearer. Neither Saweetie nor the people who weren’t good for her could hide anymore. The feedback was polarizing. Someone she knew had the gall to tell her she wasn’t pretty anymore, while other people said they could finally see her. Regardless of what anyone else thought, though, in a quest to get more in touch with herself, she challenged the beauty expectations that had been projected onto her. She felt empowered.
The next year, in 2022, Saweetie decided to go on a hiatus and continue her spiritual journey. She logged out of her social media, got rid of her entire team, and focused on getting comfortable in the studio again. “A lot of people decided to disrespect me on a world stage,” she says of what prompted her to step away from the spotlight. “When I’m in a vulnerable state, I don’t want to fight back. I don’t have the energy to be in that negative frequency. So it was really hard for me to deal with being attacked so much by different people because I’m like, Do I stoop down to their level or do I continue to just focus on myself and this journey that I’m on?”
Saweetie chose the high road. As we talk, I sense there are deeper, more unfiltered feelings beneath her placid disposition. She quickly finds a way to spin a messier emotion into a positive take and doesn’t let herself wallow for long. When we talk about the Single Life EP she released during her time off, I can tell it’s another sore spot that she’s pushed through. Indeed, Saweetie was promised an amazing marketing plan for the rollout that never materialized. “I went to war with no soldiers, there was no ammo. I felt like I was left out to dry by my label and everyone around me. There was no public support. Honestly, I internalized that situation, but I’m used to doing that.”
And then producers and music fans weighed in on an unsubstantiated headline that claimed Saweetie’s project was set to sell only 2,000 copies in its first week. “Somebody paid for that story to run,” she reveals — and she knows who it was. “I went back and forth with myself a lot. It’s not fair, but also, what do I gain from exposing the person? Drama.”
The grace in her grind means she endures a lot on her own, and she makes it clear to me that she’ll never vent on social media. Instead of going online, she finds solace in water. “The shower is my safe space,” she says. “I love taking out a wig or a weave, washing my hair, and really letting the energy off my head. I think that’s how I cope. I like to get roses and put them on the floor and stand on them.”
That self-care ritual is a necessity, not a luxury. “I feel like I’m an easy target because I don’t respond [to online negativity],” she says. “It does upset me.”
I ask Saweetie if she feels protected in the business. “No, I don’t feel protected,” she replies. There’s a heaviness that hovers over us. She needs time to reflect more on the idea of safety. “I’m not the only person,” she continues. “I know that there’s probably other people who feel the same way I feel. Why is it that some people get protected and some people don’t?”
Neither of us has the answer. But as a woman, Saweetie knows that lack of protection is something she can unfortunately count on. If a woman does speak out, she’s reprimanded. So if the loss outweighs the gain, she keeps her truest feelings close, knowing she’ll win in the end.
Back from her hiatus and with a brand-new team, Saweetie is feeling super confident in her pen, and finally ready to release her long-awaited debut album. The two loosies, “Shot O’Clock” and “Birthday,” were put out to gauge the temperature of her audience and won’t be on the LP. Technically, Saweetie says, she has an album already, but the final version depends on the singles that she releases ahead of it. It’ll have a new title that she doesn’t know yet. So really, it’s still a work in progress. Some evolutions can’t be rushed.
Says Saweetie, “As an artist, the frequency changes. The music I created up until now, in three months I could listen to it and I could be like, ‘I’m not that girl anymore.’” When it comes to the common thread throughout her new music, she’s leaving that up to the audience to pull out. What she does know for sure is that the album is a compilation of who she is in all her moods: “The theme is just Saweetie.”
This part of her career is all about consistency, according to Saweetie. It’s a concept she owned at the start of her career and wants to return to moving forward. In addition to music, she has a guest-starring role in the Starz series BMF. But after earlier gigs on shows such as Grown-ish and Bel-Air, Saweetie gave her agent a note: “No more musician roles.”
“If I’m going to dedicate myself to another craft,” she says, “I want to be challenged. I want to actually get into character.”
Creatively, mentally, Saweetie aspires to operate on the highest level, especially in how she treats herself. “There’s been a lot of times these past couple of years where I’ve given up on myself,” she recalls. “Whether people knew about that or not, I just felt myself giving up, and I don’t want to do that anymore.”
Photographer: Dan Beleiu
Writer: Lakin Imani Starling
Stylist: Jordan Boothe
Hair: Evanie Frausto
Makeup: Sheika Daley
Set Design: Lizzie Lang
Manicure: Temeka Jackson
Video Director: Tyler Kohlhoff
Production: Viewfinders
Benjamin Wallace-Wells
Joy Montgomery
Calin Van Paris
Christopher Luu