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Saweetie Melts the Ice

Seven years after her breakout hit, Saweetie still hasn’t released her debut album. But with a fresh perspective on work ethic, a life free from distractions, and a healthy connection to her emotions, the music she’s making right now will prove to fans that all the waiting was worthwhile.

Somewhere in central London, Holburn to be exact, I arrive for a reservation at the illustrious Mirror Room, a jewel box of a tea room, ensconced in gold and tucked inside the stately Rosewood Hotel. The glossy black table is topped with two sleek porcelain pots of Earl Grey tea. A tuxedoed server swans in with a tray of delicately cut English tea sandwiches: smoked salmon with avocado puree on charcoal bread; pressed cucumber, cream cheese, avocado, egg, and olive tapenade. My companion at this traditional tea, the Grammy-nominated rapper and actress Saweetie, marvels at the pomp and circumstance of it all, her gold Louis Vuitton hoop earrings swinging as she smiles and laughs in delight.

Saweetie lounging on beige couch in a sheer dress
Who Decides War dress, Cartier earrings, and Jacquie Aiche bracelets.

Emman Montalvan

We weren’t supposed to meet here. Saweetie had been on a three-week journey of self-discovery through Africa when she learned of the Palisades Fire that broke out in northwest Los Angeles on January 7. It was succeeded by the Eaton Fire, which blazed a few miles north of my apartment. Then came the Sunset Fire, which threatened the Hills north of Saweetie’s West Hollywood home. She had originally planned to, on the way back from Africa, make a brief stop in London, to record the follow-up to her bitingly confident 2024 single “Is It the Way.” Yet just before we were scheduled to meet in WeHo, her publicist told me Saweetie would be staying in the U.K. until further notice.

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The next night, I hopped on a red-eye flight to Heathrow—and less than 24 hours after fleeing a city besieged by smoke, it feels surreal to sit across from Saweetie, two climate refugees having afternoon tea.

“That was so heartbreaking,” Saweetie says of watching the fires unfold on social media, thousands of miles away from her home. “I thought, L.A. has wildfires every now and then, but in the middle of nowhere. The fact that it was touching neighborhoods…” she trails off, running her hand through her long black tresses. “My heart goes out to the people who lost their homes. I can only imagine the memories that burned down with them.”

Saweetie had plans to drop an album by now. But even after a strong run of upbeat, bubblegum hip-hop hits, such as 2019’s “My Type” and 2021’s “Best Friend” with Doja Cat, Saweetie is plotting a career pivot. She’s shut down any and all rumors of romance by “dating her career” instead. In 2023, she hired manager Melissa Ruderman, who previously managed Mariah Carey under Roc Nation. Last year, Saweetie began to reconsider the title and concept of her long-awaited debut album (originally announced as Pretty Bitch Music) and bumped the release date to summer 2025. Over the winter, she traveled the world and found herself a new, more global groove.

“It just showed me how linear we think in America,” the 31-year-old says of her excursion, swirling a glass of sparkling rosé in her hand, which is manicured with a frosty pink gel. What began with a DNA test (which suggested that 51 percent of Saweetie’s lineage is African) turned into her first pilgrimage to the continent. “In Africa, they're all going with the flow, they're not rushed. What I found is [that] when you surrender to divine timing, everything falls into place, rather than trying to force something to happen.”

Saweetie wears an orange lace dress in a blue room.
McQueen dress, Pandora rings, Suzanne Kalan earrings and bracelets, and Rene Caovilla shoes.

Emman Montalvan

An avid astrology buff with an adventurous Sagittarius moon, Saweetie used astro-cartography to plan her journey. The technique measures one’s compatibility with various parts of the world, based on the position of their planets at birth. During the festive month of “Detty December,” she and a close friend travelled the West African countries of Benin, Equatorial Guinea, the Republic of the Congo, and Nigeria. The latter is crossed by Saweetie’s Mars line, denoting an auspicious location for leadership opportunities and new projects. “I was very goal-oriented out there,” she says.

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In Nigeria’s largest city, Lagos, she wrote music, went club-hopping, and read books to children at a foster home. In Abuja, the capital, she linked up with the rapper Odumodublvck (pronounced “Ah-do-ma-do Black”). His crafty blend of Afrobeats, drill, and grime made him the first Nigerian MC with an entry on the Global Spotify chart. Saweetie recorded some verses for one of his upcoming tracks, and the two are planning to record more material in Los Angeles. “His voice, it's so different,” she says. “It's nice to hear someone who's in my field, but in another genre.”

The trip would prove to be more spiritual than professional, though. “I feel like I found my voice in Africa,” Saweetie tells me. “America's culture is like Hollywood. It's financial. It's capitalism. Where is the culture within humanity? I think that's why I've been soul-searching, because I wanted to have pride in who I am as a woman. Like, where do I come from? What do I believe in? What do I stand for? What do I not stand for? What do I love? What do I not love? And because I went through a lot of those emotions in Africa, it helped me pull back so many layers of this wall that I put up… If you stay [there] long enough, you develop your own family.”

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Saweetie arches back and points foot on a beige couch in a white sheer dress
Who Decides War dress, Cartier earrings, and Jacquie Aiche bracelets and anklets.

Emman Montalvan

Born Diamonté Harper in Santa Clara, California, Saweetie grew up moving from town to town along the East Bay and Sacramento. Being raised by trendy young parents in an interracial home—her father is African-American, her mother is from the Philippines—meant getting a crash course in Bay Area hip-hop, such as Mac Dre and E-40. She says it also came with emotional challenges.

Saweetie stands in a blue room with a beige ruffled dress.
Ulla Johnson dress, Gianvito Rossi heels, and Suzanne Kalan hoop earrings.

Emman Montalvan

“[My] parents were working night shifts, day shifts,” she recalls. “All I did was see them survive, but that taught me how to hustle. When you're raised in that environment, that's all you think life is. I've been very hyper-independent. Girl—I had a house key when I was 7 years old!”

Inspired by the athletes in her family (her grandfather Willie Harper played linebacker for the San Francisco 49ers), Saweetie took up running, volleyball, and powder puff football in high school. (Her perfect spiral throw almost landed her on the boys’ football team, she says, but her grandmother wouldn’t approve.) She credits her youth playing sports for helping shape her drive as an artist and businesswoman.

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“People who play sports are solution-based,” says Saweetie. “They know how to enforce team camaraderie. They know how to communicate. If you play a sport, you have a higher chance of being hired by me.”

Her coursework as a communications and business student at the University of Southern California would help her map out a marketing strategy for her eventual path as a rapper. Inspired by bold, ultra-femme MCs like Nicki Minaj, Saweetie began broadcasting bite-sized freestyles on Instagram in 2016, which she recorded from the dashboard of her Jeep. That same year, she graduated with a bachelor’s degree in communications, and put her plan to the test. Using the beat from Khia’s “My Neck, My Back (Lick It),” she cultivated a flow that matched the shrugging, stone-cold swagger of a star athlete in what would become her 2017 breakout track, “Icy Grl,” which she uploaded on Soundcloud. Within a year, she signed a record deal with Warner, and released her debut EP, High Maintenance. “I was a part of that group that was able to break through social media,” she says. “Baby, nobody was checking for me—I was so consistent with putting myself out there!”

Saweetie leans on a golden table in a sheer green dress.
LaQuan Smith robe and dress and Jacquie Aiche body chain.

Emman Montalvan

After the elastic jump-rope bounce of her single “My Type” landed on the Billboard Hot 100, Saweetie was quick to build on the momentum by firing off a steady procession of hits. She made a concerted effort to collaborate primarily with women, such as City Girls, Latto, Trina, Doja Cat, Gwen Stefani, and Jhéne Aiko. Despite the fierce, competitive edge that hip-hop typically demands, Saweetie is a team player at heart—which is why she’s more keen to collaborate with women than to beef with them. “I'm rooting for all the girls,” says Saweetie. “I like Nicki, Doja, Doechii, Meg, Cardi… Because, girl, we have it really hard behind the scenes,” Saweetie admits. “As rap girls, sometimes our resources are inadequate [compared] to other genres.”

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By 2022, she hit a new career high when “Best Friend” was nominated for Best Rap/Sung Performance at the Grammys; Saweetie was nominated for Best New Artist as well. Yet not long after the nominations were announced, in a fleeting moment of catharsis, as she puts it, she decided to shave her head.

“I went through such a traumatic time in my life. I just wanted to start over,” she says when reflecting on 2021. It was a year that brought her great success, but also great heartbreak following a very public breakup. “I thought life would get better, but girl, life just kept life-ing… Surrendering to God and the universe has actually gotten me places. I used to be a control freak. I used to try to micromanage everything. I think we resort to micromanaging everything because we feel helpless.”

When I ask about her love life today, or rather, her recent choice to divest from relationships, she smiles coyly and pours a little more tea. “When I reflect on certain points in my career, I did allow myself to get slightly distracted,” she says. “But I'm thankful for those lessons because they've made me wiser. Anything that may be trying to compete with my goals, with my ambitions, with my priorities… I no longer second guess my career and if you can't understand it, then respectfully, get out of my way.”

Saweetie wears a fitted blue dress in a blue room and leans back on a chair.
Brandon Maxwell dress, Christian Louboutin heels, Cartier ring, Bvlgari necklace, bracelets, and earrings.

Emman Montalvan

After the release of her fourth EP, The Single Life, in 2022, she began to feel the burnout. She’d been recording and releasing music nonstop for five years. She was under so much pressure to churn out buzzy new songs for her debut album, but her tank was empty. Saweetie took the next two years to slow productivity and do what athletes do in such a situation: “They rejuvenate the mind, body and soul,” she says. 

For all the emphasis she’s put on making money moves in her music, she needed to dig deeper to find her purpose. It was while vacationing in Turks and Caicos last year with her mother that Saweetie began to see the woman who raised her—and the defense mechanisms she inherited—in a new light. “We had so many special moments that we were able to heal the trauma between us,” Saweetie reflects. “Immigrant mothers keep secrets. My heart goes out to immigrant women. They feel like they have to internalize their pain.”

She realized that her mother’s frosty, walled-off demeanor—even though it existed to protect her—had affected Saweetie’s approach to relationships and, by extension, her artistry. “As a child I was very, very sensitive, but told I [wasn’t allowed to] cry,” she says. “It gave me a cold heart. But the more I discover spirituality, and being in tune with myself, I'm slowly becoming more vulnerable again. And I feel like the best music is made in a vulnerable state.”

Saweetie wears a deep cut yellow dress in front of an unfinished pink painting
David Koma dress and Pandora necklaces, bracelets, and earrings.

Emman Montalvan

If there’s anyone who drafted the blueprint for hip-hop vulnerability, says Saweetie, it was Lauryn Hill. Saweetie turned the dial back to 1998 and listened to The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill for inspiration, hoping to awaken her own inner wordsmith once more. “I cried listening to the lyrics,” says Saweetie. “She was so tapped into herself.”

As Saweetie continues to tap her emotional well, she feels that her approach to songwriting must also evolve to better accommodate her healing. “I'm a workaholic. But I no longer take pride in that. Now I tell my team, ‘I do need some time off. I do need to rejuvenate. I do need to sleep. I do need to drink more water.’ I do need to do whatever I need to do to refill my soul and myself.”

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Musically speaking, Saweetie has foraged a grab bag of sounds from all the places she’s traveled. One major tell of her international playgirl era is what she calls her “house music wave”—she taps the Spotify icon on her phone to show me what she calls her “Overseas Mami” playlist, which is populated with various Afrobeats and global dance tracks. “If it's a hard-ass beat, I don't know if I can speak from the heart,” she says.

In her latest release “Immaculate,” a steely club track from English DJ-rapper Shygirl on which Saweetie is featured, she takes one of the biggest swings of her career. (And makes sure to flaunt her astro savvy while she’s doing it: “I'm the It girl of the It girls/Got my Venus in Taurus,” she purrs.) The two debuted the song live during Charli XCX and Troye Sivan's Sweat Tour in October. “I would do a whole project with [Shygirl],” says Saweetie. “It's just something about people from London. And I'm a fan of Charli XCX. Her concerts are like pretty girl raves. It is very enjoyable watching her rise.”

Saweetie wears a deep cut yellow dress in front of an unfinished pink painting while leaning on a yellow chair.
David Koma dress and Pandora necklaces, bracelets, and earrings.

Emman Montalvan

Apart from becoming a crossover darling in the U.K. and Nigeria, apparently, another one of Saweetie’s goals this year is to be cast in a Netflix project. “After I drop this album, I can foresee myself going into complete acting mode,” she says, noting that she auditioned for a semi-music-related film in December. “I sent in my audition tapes before the new year, so I'm looking forward to hearing back from them,” she says. “[I'd] be playing the protagonist. So I'm really excited for this.”

Saweetie has appeared on several shows already. In 2021 she played her first fictional role as Indigo on the fourth season of Grown-ish; last year she had a guest-starring role on Starz’s BMF. She was also featured as herself on Selling Sunset, The Voice, and with will.i.am. and Keke Palmer on the musical game show That’s My Jam. (She and Palmer go way back: “She actually met me at one of those L.A. college parties, [while] we were all in the bathroom fixing our makeup” says Saweetie. “She’s just always been a very supportive woman in my life.”)

Saweetie wears a neon green sheer dress
LaQuan Smith robe and dress and Jacquie Aiche body chain.

Emman Montalvan

Outside the gilded windows of the Mirror Room, we can tell by the dusking sky that our afternoon will soon come to a close. In two hours, Saweetie and I have each downed two teapots of Earl Grey, several sandwiches, and assorted scones with lemon curd, clotted cream and strawberry jam. But I’m still waiting for the actual tea: What can we expect from her upcoming album?

She won’t say much. Over the past couple of years, she's been prioritizing her personal growth and "finding myself as an artist." But she confirms she is finally—finally!—ready to drop the album and describes the new music as "feel-good” and “more global.” “It will address some misconceptions about myself,” she says, “and be authentic to the magical woman I am today."

“I’m showing women what it looks like to make a diamond under pressure,” says Saweetie, looking at me intently. “As you mentioned before, I come off as very unbothered. And I don't want my fans to commit to that fantasy: ‘If Saweetie's like that, then I have to be like that.’ No!”

“Saweetie's a human,” she says. “She cries. She breaks down. She shuts down. I go through a lot of emotions. This is the moment when I'm able to finally speak, in a full project. A bad bitch got feelings too.”

Credits

  • Photographer
  • Emman Montalvan


  • Cinematographer
  • Matilda Montgomery
  • Josh Anderson


  • Stylist
  • Kevin Huynh


  • Makeup Artist
  • Cedric Jolivet


  • Hair Stylist
  • Greg Gilmore


  • Nails
  • Temeka Jackson


  • Tailor
  • Ongell Fereria


  • Set Designer
  • Amy Jo Diaz


  • Styling Assistant
  • Joe Gonzalez


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