Latto: Basking Fully in Her Coldest Season Ever

Because the ending touches on her honey-hued child hairs are swooped and sprayed in place, Latto snaps into focus. On set of her EBONY December 2024 cowl shoot, the unmistakable whistle of Ciara’s early aughts basic, “Goodies” floats by means of the studio speaker, permitting the (quickly to be) 26-year-old rap star to heat as much as the lens. She contorts her form and conjures her personal model of opulent, rap-pop supremacy. 

Twenty-four hours later, she’ll be obliging the smartphone cameras of hundreds of followers at her LA tour cease. However for proper now, Latto deftly switches up poses with precision – a sashay of a fur coat right here, a flirty ponytail flip there, a crouch, a perch, a prowl – and pulls out a mini camcorder to seize her personal picture within the classic tartan Vivienne Westwood ensemble, discovering her greatest angles within the rear show. She features extra confidence with every shutter click on. She’s at house beneath the lights. 

Sugar Honey Iced Tea, the rapper’s third studio album, is all a few return house. It’s a venture that catapults turn-of-the-century sounds of the Soiled South into the trail of Latto’s Gen Z, dangerous b*tch revelry. Extra importantly, it captures a pivotal time for the artist, one she calls a rebirth. “Don’t they be saying, like, your frontal lobe is totally developed or one thing like that?,” she laughs, zeroing in on the psychological shift she’s skilled from her early 20s till now. “It was a brief timeframe, nevertheless it was like I had been by means of a lot in that brief timeframe, so I had a lot to speak about.”

Alongside the best way, she’s given us a lot to speak about, too. As a 2024 EBONY Energy 100 honoree within the Era Subsequent class, Latto represents a bunch of younger Black innovators redefining success in their very own picture. Coming off the megawatt success of “Massive Power” in 2021 and collabs with the likes of USHER, Jennifer Lopez and Okay-pop sensation Jungkook, Latto may have simply stayed on the highly-lucrative mainstream pop practice.

As a substitute, she felt the urge to faucet again into the syrupy, Southern appeal of entice, the identical simple knock of her 2019 breakthrough, “Bitch from da Souf.” Her tester was “Put It on da Ground,” produced by Pooh Beatz and Go Grizzly. The monitor, which might change into the primary single off Sugar Honey Iced Tea, earned instantaneous acclaim. It empowered us to tear ourselves outta plastic and act model new, impressed Cardi B to hop on the remix and formally supercharged the battery in Latto’s again.

For Sugar Honey Iced Tea, Latto gained the gumption to ask her label to fall again. She locked in with the identical group of producers, Pooh Beatz, Go Grizzly, and engineer Ben Hogarth, which allowed her to lean into her instincts. Collectively, they caramelized her passions so as to add her personal authentic recipe to the Southern rap canon.

The result’s an idiosyncratic ode to her metropolis and her most complete venture thus far; An album she herself dubs a basic on the triumphant intro monitor, “Georgia Peach. “I simply felt the cohesion and I simply knew that it was gonna translate,” she says.This cohesion comes collectively greatest on “Massive Mama,” a standout of the album and the title of an alter ego the rapper’s having enjoyable channeling. The nickname, normally reserved for a head-of-household matriarch, lays declare to Latto’s newfound sense of self: “All people respect Massive Mama. You don’t play with Massive Mama as a result of she’s gonna put belt to ass. That’s the power.”

Showcasing her nimble potential to mix genres, “Massive Mama” was a artistic swing for Latto. The tune’s switch-up – shifting gears from a pampered, heart-eyed romp to kinetic, braggadocious bars – bridges the magic of her versatility. “Massive Mama” is nominated for Greatest Melodic Rap Efficiency heading into the 2025 GRAMMYs and for Latto, this recognition hits totally different when she considers what number of doubted her on the time of the document’s preliminary launch.

“I feel ‘Massive Mama’ has simply allowed me to only redeem myself, construct up my confidence to an all-time excessive, and simply have constructed this wall between me and out of doors commentary to the place it’s nothing you may say that can make me really feel lower than myself,” she proclaims. “That is my likelihood to redeem myself as in, to myself.”The MC rides this self-assuredness of Sugar Honey Iced Tea by means of by making her references seen and heard. She performs the 2024 model of ATL’s New New for the album’s trailer. For her tour’s staging, A-City establishment Magic Metropolis turns into Latto Metropolis, full with the stripper poles. Her signature fashion has developed to exude a darkish and moody luxuriating Nineteen Seventies mama  – “Heavy on the animal print, particularly cheetah!” –  with a layer of candy-coated, Y2K gloss. She’s decided to rock her pure hair coloration as a substitute of her earlier shiny wigs and to take pleasure in every part that makes her distinctive (Let’s not overlook, she is the primary solo feminine rapper from The A to go platinum.) Audibly and visually, Sugar Honey Iced Tea period displays a Southern lady turning into her personal boss after years of being directed by others.

 

“I really feel like my complete profession has been that – rising pains – and folks telling me what I ought to and shouldn’t do,” she says. “So many instances, I’d allow them to get in my head, like, ‘This not popping off quick sufficient’ or this individual surpassed me. However you simply actually do must belief God’s plan and God’s timing as a result of, you realize, I’m so grateful for my journey now. I really feel like me having this sluggish and regular incline has been extra useful to me than simply blowing up tremendous quick after which setting this excessive tone that I’m without end gonna be chasing in my profession. You already know what I’m saying? I’m grateful for the child steps.” 

A rarity for any artist her age, the entertainer born Alyssa Stephens has already spent greater than a decade exhibiting and proving in public. As a baby protege, she was the inaugural winner of actuality rap competitors The Rap Recreation in 2016. Since then, the lyricist has needed to modify to a steep studying curve; Answering surgical procedure rumors, listening to critiques of her authentic rap title, Miss Mulatto, and present process a change in stage moniker, continuously rebuffing the reductive declare that promoting intercourse is her solely expertise with lyrical shows stuffed with dexterity and wit. Since signing to RCA Information in 2020, she’s remained in streaming rotations with two robust albums. Queen of Da Souf in 2020, adopted by 777 in 2022. Each proved she was able to the Midas Contact however lacked the synthesized imaginative and prescient she’s lastly zeroed in on with Sugar Honey Iced Tea.

Latto’s discovered to arrange boundaries alongside the best way, too. Although her current work expresses emotions of a lady clearly in love, she’s protecting of her rumored relationship with a fellow rapper – a transfer, she’s mentioned, to guard her peace. (Plus, in a male dominated discipline, this privateness permits her to show she’s a savage all on her personal.) She’s been goaded into rap beef greater than as soon as and, to this point, has discovered to stability holding her personal (She’s traded subliminal disses with Bronx rapper Ice Spice this 12 months, most notably on the monitor “Sunday Service.”) with tuning out the instigators. 

“I really feel prefer it’s like a one-of-a-kind expertise, particularly with the best way the music trade goes now,” Latto says, describing how she began her profession passing out her personal CDs and watched music promotion go from a bodily to digital sport. “It’s allowed me to have the longevity that I’ve had as a result of I used to be constructed earlier than the Web, so the Web can by no means break me.”

Once I ask her to contemplate the longevity she’s been sustaining in relation to that of EBONY’s upcoming 80 years of Black storytelling, her introspection provides strategy to a phrase: “I really feel like brick-by-brick is my testimony, for actual. I feel compared, legacy-wise, I’d say simply constructing in that groundwork and having business success, but additionally tradition success and neighborhood success is necessary. I’ve seen business success… However none of that’s assured in the long term with out constructing a love within the tradition and neighborhood, like individuals who acquired your again it doesn’t matter what, regardless of if this tune is on Billboard or not. So, I feel me and EBONY can relate in that approach. We for the mainstream, however we additionally for the folks.”

TEAM EBONY – CONTENT

Government Vice President, Content material Candace Rodney – @cjrodney  Government Director, Editorial J’nelle Agee – @jnagee30  Director, Improvement & Manufacturing Yadira Espinal – @isthatyadira 

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Director, Expertise Ashle Mitchell – @ashle_monae  Director, Editorial Savannah Taylor – @savmtaylor 

Leisure & Tradition Editor Delaina Dixon – @delainadixon 

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Editorial Author, Model Options Kristin Morgan – @kayforkrstn  Copy Editor Jonathan Giles – @jgileswrites 

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Supervisor, Video Annastacia Gladston – @athenaturalista 

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Graphic Designer John Bruton – @brutoncreative 

Venture Supervisor, Artistic Janald Dufont – @justjay_d 

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Cowl Group

Cowl Story Author Sidney Madden – @sid_madden 

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Government Producer / Artistic Producer David Wept – @davidwept 

Line Producer Wyatt Whitaker – @wyattwhitaker 

Manufacturing Supervisor Morgana Yasmeen – @morganayasmeen 

1st Assistant Director Robert “RB” Blair II – @cinemacowboys 

1st Picture Assitant Alejandro Sosa – @alesosaoficial  2nd Picture Assistant Khalil Bowens – @kbooggy 

Digitech Kim Tran – @kimtranaintgotnogram  

Manufacturing Designer Justin Garner – @greenhousecreative__ 

Artwork Director Brian Boehner – @brianleeboehner  

Social Videographer & Editor Abe Azab – @azabmedia 

Manufacturing Assistants Solana Campbell –@solana.campbell Vladamir Triaca – @transmissiontheory 

Stylist Matthew Reisman – @matthewreisman Reginald Reisman – @reginaldreismam 

Hair Stylist Ashanti Lation – @viphair_ashanti 

Make-Up Artist  Latto – @latto 

Contact-Ups MUA Stephanie Smith – @stephanie.a.smith  

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