City Girls

The City Girls' road to glory was a rocky one. It begins with a song called “Fu*k Dat Ni**a,” a raw but entertaining kiss-off the Miami rap duo, made up of Yung Miami and JT, released in 2017. In that debut single, it's easy to hear the seedlings of what would become their calling cards: dynamic synergy, glamour cut by attitude that's brash and unbothered all at once, and the kind of quotables reserved for group chats and finstas. “Fu*k Dat Ni**a” soon caught the attention of Atlanta-based label Quality Control Music, who quickly signed the pair and had them release a video for the song in January 2018 and their debut mixtape, PERIOD, in May that same year. By July—just as their wave was beginning to crest—JT was in prison, locked up on fraud charges. As JT (real name: Jatavia Shakara Johnson) served over a year in prison, Yung Miami (aka Caresha Romeka Brownlee) did a heroic job of keeping City Girls on the tip of everyone's tongue. Their debut album, Girl Code, arrived in November 2018, and Miami kept up appearances on tour, through guest verses, and in the press on their behalf, all while mothering her young son (she later gave birth to a daughter in October 2019). Girl Code cracked the Billboard 200 at No. 63 and landed the pair their first Top 40 hits with “Act Up” and “Twerk,” which peaked at No. 26 and No. 29, respectively. JT was officially freed from federal custody in March 2020, and that June, their second album, City on Lock, arrived, improving on the commercial success of the one prior. City Girls' presence and ascent, as their lyrics suggest, are attributable to their resilience, pride, and just a little bit of finesse. From “Take Yo Man” to “Pussy Talk,” there's no shortage of bravado, pleasures (both carnal and material), or scams in their songs, which brim with a buoyant nonchalance, as if begging for someone to challenge them. It's this ownership over who they are—without shame or pause—that oozes from their music, carrying the proud, sex-positive hustler's DNA of the Florida rap that preceded them.