The morning when Saviti learned that she was a Grammy nominated artist, she didn't cry; she didn't finish the victory lap; she didn't ask to celebrate at all.
Her team members were confused by her reaction or lack of reaction and had to coax her to drink champagne with them.
"She didn't really celebrate anything," said Eesean Bolden, senior vice president of Warner Music A&R. "She just worked harder."
For the 28-year-old rapper—a former track and field star, volleyball team captain, and quarterback of the high school powder puff football team—Recording Academy’s recognition is not a reason for him to drink during the day, but a reminder to keep on training.
"I am grateful, but there is still a lot to do," Saweetie explained through Zoom at her home in Los Angeles. "I have the mentality of an athlete. I think it's great to be a team, but winning is important."
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The New Orleans native and the band leader of "Stephen Colbert's Late Night" ranked first among all Grammy nominees with 11 Grammy nominations, covering a dizzying array of genres.
At the 64th Grammy Awards on January 31, Saweetie will compete with 9 other nominees for the Best Newcomer Award, including pop queen Olivia Rodrigo, Australia MC the Kid Laroi and has won eight awards The artist producer Finneas Grammy is the songwriter and producer for his little sister Billie Eilish.
Saweetie's "Best Friend" is a carefree girl's night song with Doja Cat as the protagonist. It was also nominated as a typical male-dominated rap song category.
"It's time to show the world what my team and I are made of," she said.
(Warning: some of the videos below contain profanity.)
Although the pandemic is still going on, Saweetie taught a master class that maintained its momentum. Prior to her long-awaited debut album "Pretty Bitch Music", she released a series of cheerful bad bitch singles-including "My Type" in 2019, "Tap In" in 2020 and Jhené Aiko's support "Back to the Street." January's "Best Friend" ranked 14th on the Billboard Top 100 Singles chart.
On January 7, she will release a seven-song project called "Icy Season", followed by "Pretty Bitch Music" later in 2022. The album was originally scheduled to be released in June, but was shelved due to artistic reasons — “I have to get to sing in pairs and use the melody to be comfortable,” she said — and philosophy.
"I want to deconstruct the connotation of the word'pretty bitch'," she mused. "You [may] think she is arrogant or a mean girl. But I look at her temperament, her self-esteem, the way she treats people. Beautiful girls come in different shapes, sizes, and skin tones. I like a boy who realizes that "I'm beautiful too." Beautiful bitch music is to have fun and restore your confidence in a world that wants to disappoint you."
Saweetie's own confidence has not come easily. She was born in Diamonté Quiava Valentin Harper in Santa Clara and grew up in a mixed family that often moved between the Bay Area and Sacramento. Her father Johnny Harper is African-American, and her mother Trinidad Valentine is Filipino and Chinese.
Saweetie stuttered when she was a child, and she fights against stuttering by raping along with her favorite song and creating her own material privately. The children called her "Stanley the Stuttering", and her grandmother Roxane affectionately called her "Sa-weetie".
"I got equal treatment from my grandmother," Saweetie said. "They always make me feel tolerated."
She is one of many talented people in the family; her father played for San Jose State University, and her grandfather Willie Harper played for the San Francisco 49ers during Joe Montana. She knew that MC Hammer was "Uncle Stan". Actor Gabrielle Union and Grammy Award-winning DJ producer Zaytoven are her cousins; the latter assisted Saweetie's 2019 EP, "High Maintenance".
"My family tree has a lot of successes, but I was the first person to gain a lot of wealth among immediate family members," she said. "My parents work from 9 to 5, but they never complain. They instilled a hardworking work ethic in [me]."
They also trained Saweetie through their in-depth knowledge of hip-hop and R&B, from Tupac to Tevin Campbell. Her mother played a shrew in the videos of rappers such as LL Cool J and DMX; at the same time, Saweetie described her as a "tiger mother" and she expected her daughter to get all A's. "She would say,'If you do the wrong thing, you are wasting your time and other people's time.'"
As she grew taller and stronger than the other girls in the class, Saweetie was encouraged to devote her energy to sports. “I’ve always been a tomboy, but I’ve never opposed femininity,” she said, adding that her “Saturday Night Live” performance inspired by a comedy in November realized a secret teenage dream. "Do you know the movie "Chicago"? I will always watch it at my grandmother's house. I want to be as charming as Velma and Roxie."
After graduating from the University of Southern California in 2016 with a bachelor's degree in business and communications, she began posting freestyle shots in her jeep-an economical alternative to renting a studio.
In 2017, sampling from Khia’s classic song "My Neck, My Back (Lick It)", Saweetie uploaded a track to SoundCloud and named it "Icy Grl", which is a tribute to her name Diamonté, Based on the Spanish "diamond."
"Do you want to take a bag of weed? I try to take a bag every week/deposit it into my savings and invest in the right company," she vomited. It immediately became a viral epidemic.
By February 2018, Saweetie signed a recording agreement with Warner and re-released the song under her own brand, Icy Records. By the fall of 2019, "Icy Grl" has obtained platinum certification.
"She wrote these tough female national anthems, but she was just being herself," Warner's Bolden said.
In her next hit "My Type", Saweetie boasted that she would never condescend to date a man whose income is less than eight figures.
She co-wrote the song with her boyfriend Quavo at the time, he is the hip-hop trio Migos. By March 2021, their relationship has ended; surveillance video leaked in 2020 showed that the two had a physical conflict in the elevator. (They all stated that they have "moved on"-and the pink-blue Bentley Quavo she gave her has been replaced by Rolls-Royce.)
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Just as more and more women rushed into the halls of hip-hop elites—Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion, to name just two examples—Saweetie preached the modern feminist mix of the success gospel. She believes that the path to women's empowerment is the material and emotional security paved for everyone. But as a black and Asian woman in the music industry, she is still analyzing how it feels to feel safe.
"I don't think I felt it until this year," she reflected. "I am a confident person, but when it comes to knowing my worth, it is difficult to measure. Empowerment is not about being famous or owning all the money in the world... I feel that I have always valued and respected myself And struggle."
Currently, she is most enthusiastic about showing her first performance on the Grammy stage.
"I feel like an alchemist," she said, referring to Paulo Coelho's novel of the same name. "I have a strong heart. If I want to form a sports team, if I want to get a GPA of 4.5, if I want to create my own clothing line, if I want to sell candy-whatever I want to do, I will succeed. . Once I discovered my passion for music, I knew I would come here eventually."
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Suzy Exposito is a music reporter for the Los Angeles Times. She has served as a pioneer in the Latin music department of the Rolling Stones and has written for NPR, Pitchfork and Revolver.
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