Saweetie

Saweetie has no problem standing on the shoulders of giants. The rapper made a name for herself by rhyming over iconic tracks, giving a nod to those who came before while building her own catalog of fiery hits. Born Diamanté Quiava Valentin Harper in 1994 and raised in the Bay Area, she achieved academic and athletic success, even earning a college scholarship to the University of Southern California. After graduation, she turned a childhood love of poetry and rhyming over YouTube videos into a musical career. Taking the name Saweetie, she developed a following by sitting in cars, spitting rhymes over instrumental tracks, and sharing them on Instagram. Her first hit grew from a car rap where she let loose over Khia’s track, “My Neck, My Back”, turning it into her gold-certified 2017 single, “ICY GRL”. Her debut EP, High Maintenance, arrived in 2018 filled with clever wordplay and undeniable hooks. She returned in 2019 with a new EP, ICY, with its brazen and brash London On Da Track-produced anthem, "My Type”. As her buzz grew, she opted to take a year-long break from the spotlight, telling Apple Music that she used the time off “to focus on [her] artist development.” She marked her return in 2020 with the release of “Tap In”, which borrows a beat from Too $hort’s “Blow the Whistle”, and teased the release of her debut album, Pretty Bitch Music. As Saweetie explained to Apple Music, the title pays homage to a legend: “bitch” is an acronym for “boss, independent, tough, CEO and hyphy”, an idea that was inspired by what 2Pac “did with Thug Life". But like everything else in her world, it's given a uniquely Saweetie spin.