After 15 years within the rap recreation (the 25-year-old began rhyming when she was 10), and about 4 within the mainstream, Latto’s gotten so good she makes it look simple. She is aware of easy methods to change flows and types seamlessly, like the best way she works some R&B into hard-hitting lure on her newest single “Massive Mama” and not using a hitch. With hits like “Put It on Da Flooring,” and its buzzy remix with Cardi B, she performs the mean-girl-bad-bitch position convincingly, particularly after the sugary pop of her chart topper “Massive Vitality.” Although her third album Sugar Honey Iced Tea is an almost frictionless pay attention, the intention and energy it takes to make one thing so cohesive, skillful, and succinct is plain. All through the album, she sounds assured, comfy, and in management.
Maybe she appears so relaxed on Sugar Honey Iced Tea as a result of she actually made herself at dwelling on it, crafting a cautious ode to her Atlanta roots and life within the south broadly. Earlier than she was Latto, Multatto, and Miss Mulatto earlier than that, Alyssa Stephens was raised in Clayton County, Georgia. That space is simply exterior of Atlanta’s metropolis limits, however an plain and deeply intertwined a part of its metro space and tradition. (That is one thing she takes head on within the remix to “Sorry Not Sorry,” a tune from one other native rapper, Omerettà the Nice, that brought on a stir a few years in the past by telling folks from town’s surrounding areas to cease claiming “the A”).
Latto retains the hometown love reverent and artistic, with few moments which are too on the nostril. Solely three songs take their names from native relics — the wonderful intro “Georgia Peach,” the uber-cool “Shrimp & Grits,” and the syrupy intercourse romp “Copper Cove,” named for a mix-y restaurant and lounge there. But the ATL allusions all through the album give it a satisfying sense of place — there are references to tearing rubber bands off stacks of money on the notorious Magic Metropolis strip membership, shifting like hometown legends TLC, performing like “New New,” a important character in a cult-classic movie named for town, and even a shoutout to Atlanta’s Actual Housewives.
Latto’s crew of featured company are all southern acts, too, most being from Atlanta as effectively. She landed an A-City legend in Ciara, but in addition calls on newer voices Younger Nudy, Hunxho, and Mariah the Scientist. The options checklist is rounded out by Coco Jones, who was raised in Tennessee and born in South Carolina, and Texans Teezo Landing and Megan Thee Stallion. Nonetheless, what makes the album complete is the best way she leans on Southern sound staples, with modern however nostalgic lure beats, R&B that nods to the reign of LaFace Data, throwbacks to skating-rink classes and Freaknik shenanigans, and home-cooked soul samples. (Most of what sounds outdated right here isn’t; the truth is, probably the most distinguished pattern is of Mike Jones’ “Again Then” on “There She Goes.”)
What makes the album nice, although, is the best way her top-notch bars move by tremendous clean sequencing. “Georgia Peach” seems like heavy, purple, velvet curtains parting to disclose a play in three acts, revolving across the streets, the sensuality, and the center of Atlanta. The jarring beat change in “Massive Mama” makes excellent sense as a transition into the grotesque “Blick Sum,” the place Latto is the puppeteer of her gun-toting man. It’s an fascinating tackle gangster shit from a girlfriend’s perspective, however she goes on to battle her personal battles on songs like “Settle Down” and “H&M” (not named for the fast-fashion powerhouse however the “harm and depressing” bitches that hate on her). “Test a ho in individual just like the doc/Rollie, Richard, AP watch/Completely different Flava Flavs with the clock,” she brags cunningly on the cocky “Settle Down.”
“Copper Cove” kicks off a piece that’s steeped in intercourse however sounds much less like intercourse for intercourse’s sake than quite a lot of rap on this route can. That tune specifically is called for a small apart in it the place Latto names the locations the place an actual love affair started: “Copper Cove to the studio, I used to be plotting in your ass again then/ Allow you to hit it from the again then, week later, I used to be moved in,” she says demurely. “Ear Sweet,” with Coco Jones’ searing vocals on the hook, is much more sentimental, however “Liquor” retains issues playful. Whereas Latto is not at all a shy woman, all of it sounds much less express and extra tasteful than songs like her personal “Sleep Sleep” and “Like a Thug,” from her raunchy second album 777. Much more emotionally and astutely, she explores relationship ups and downs on songs like “Look What You Did” and “Prized Possession.” “I might be a participant, but it surely’s not my fact,” she admits on the previous, joined by one other identified lovebird, Mariah the Scientist, who’s at the moment holding down Atlanta royal Younger Thug whereas he’s jailed in a controversial RICO case.
Sugar Honey Iced Tea is separated in to 2 discs, the second containing simply the originals and remixes of well-liked, beforehand launched songs “Put It On Da Flooring” and “Sunday Service.” After Disc One nearer “S/O to Me,” they sound like a celebration of how far Latto has come. “I do know I’m attractive as hell, and I ain’t denying it sells/ Stand within the mirror bare typically and admire myself,” she says, taking over the oft-cited and all the time boring disparagement of ladies’s rap (and music extra broadly) as a determined ploy for carnal consideration.
All through the album, Latto reveals she’s greater than a intercourse image, even when she enjoys enjoying the position. She is the entire bundle — charismatic, dexterous, and lengthy ready to make music that sticks. She typically even seems like a disciple of Drake, from the melodic “Massive Mama” to the lyrical miracle “S/O to Me.” But, in contrast to that falling famous person, few would moderately query her authenticity, particularly as she reps Atlanta not simply as a spot that she’s been, however the place she’s from.
