Pressure Makes Diamonds. Saweetie Knows It

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t’s 3 a.m. in China, but Saweetie is wide awake. Fresh off a club performance in Shanghai, the rap star is still glammed up and glowing from the love she received from fans earlier in the night. “The intensity in that room of just love and support was just so overwhelming. Those types of crowds, it doesn’t even feel like I’m working,” she tells Rolling Stone.  “It just feels like I’m rapping with my friends and family because that’s how strong the love is in the room.”

Her trek through Asia — continuing in Australia — coincides with the release of Hella Pressure, a five-track EP she calls the foundation for her long-awaited debut album. The project, which dropped Friday, channels the bright-eyed energy she brought during her car-rapping days with “Icy Grl,” while showcasing her growth after a few challenging years. It finally feels like Saweetie’s moment to shine.

“I acknowledge the fact that I took some time to create music,” says Saweetie candidly. “Now that I’m really gearing myself to go back out into the scene, this is my way of saying all that pressure just made me stronger. The challenges, the tribulations, and my experiences made me the diamond I am today.”

Saweetie teased Hella Pressure with “Boffum,” a quintessential Saweetie anthem that’s been met with open arms. Sampling Young Buck’s “Shorty Wanna Ride,” the track plays like a nightclub banger with a hyphy twist. On it, she taps into the hit-making formula she nailed before with “Tap In” (which flipped Too $hort’s “Blow the Whistle”) and “My Type” (built on “Freek-a-Leek”).

“I always wonder, what can artists do to keep that essence but evolve? I think a hit is a hit, but I can’t continue to try to remake ‘My Type.’ I can’t continue to try to make ‘Tap In’ happen,” she says. “‘Boffum’ feels like an evolution from those energies. So, I’m happy that people are feeling that way.”

Some saw the announcement of her EP as a consolation prize for the debut album that Saweetie’s fans have been clamoring for for years. In 2020, she started teasing an album she named Pretty Bitch Music that even spawned a Wikipedia page of a “forthcoming album” expected from Saweetie. But she wants to clear things up about that now.

“I honestly think that Pretty Bitch Music has become a movement. I don’t think it’s going to be my album name anymore, but I’m not sure yet,” says Saweetie. “I think that when I first had birthed that idea, I liked the ring to it, so I’m like, ‘This is my album name.’ But over the course of the years, I just feel like it’s a lifestyle, it’s an energy, it’s a movement.”

She understands fans’ frustration over the album delay, but she jokes: “The Great Wall of China wasn’t built overnight.” Yes, it’s taken time to perfect her debut project, but she’s also faced behind-the-scenes challenges she isn’t ready to speak on publicly, ones she’ll likely address on the album.

“I can create some euphemisms or something symbolic to my experiences, but to directly talk about them would involve other people,” she says. “ I feel like as a public figure, when we speak our truth, no matter how true it may be, people feel like they have to speak out and combat it. I don’t really like that energy.”

It’s that no-drama approach she’s chosen to build into her public persona, consistently keeping any mess off the feeds. Unlike some of her peers who air their dirty laundry online, Saweetie has stayed relatively quiet. “Certain things I can address straight up. But for the majority of it, I don’t really like to be a part of the drama,” she says. “But there will come a time when I do have to share my real-life experiences.”

She sees Hella Pressure as the foundation for finally stepping into her debut album era. It opens with a track that brought her back to “that Icy Grl in the car rapping,” as she puts it. The song begins with a dramatic intro where she’s “talking my shit, popping my shit” in response to those who’ve downplayed her artistry, leaning into the project’s diamond-under-pressure theme. Writing it, she says, reminded her why she started making music in the first place.

“When I was rapping in my car, I wasn’t doing it to prove anything to critics or peers. I just liked writing raps,” Saweetie says. “Once I was introduced into the music industry, it just became really competitive — you’re now being compared to this person, that person, you’re getting subs from this person and that person. So, it alters the experience.”

Has she blocked out those critical voices? “I think it’s a matter of being desensitized,” she says. “It got to a point where I had just gotten so used to hearing the bullshit. But it’s just like, ‘‘What makes you happy?’ Make something that makes you happy.”

This EP is exactly that. This time, she’s become much more intentional with her choices around what she releases. “If a song doesn’t resonate in my heart anymore, I don’t want to release it,” she says.

There’s the Afrobeats-leaning “I Need Some Inspo,” co-written with producer P2J during a creative dry spell. And she calls “Twinzzz” the “baby sister” to her hit with Doja Cat, “Best Friend,” delivering hype-up energy with the repeated mantra “Twin, lock in!” The project closes with “Superstars,” a sleek, pop collab with K-pop group Twice.

“We may not speak the same language, but we understood each other’s energy. They remind me of what pop stars felt like in the Nineties or early 2000s, just by their presence, how they carried themselves,” says Saweetie, who spent a day with the girls and was interviewed for a documentary about the group. “It was really nice to experience that. I felt like a kid, honestly, just experiencing their show and being around them. They felt like some real pop stars.”

While a debut album has always been a priority in her music career, Saweetie has made it clear that before she’s a rapper, she’s a businesswoman at heart. (She’s got the USC degree to prove it.) Top of mind right now? A beauty brand she’s launching, based on “something that I wear a lot,” she says. Like her music, it’s all intentional.

“I’m just grateful for the evolution of my own mindset, because there are times when you can doubt the journey,” she says. “And I think just through my perseverance, not only have I shown myself that if I just sit with self, appreciate self, and love self, I can also get back to the art that makes me happy.”

She adds: “When you try to prove yourself to people, you lose the essence of why you’re here…. I’m happy to be back to this mindset of making art for the love of it.”