Latto is currently on the road in support of her second album 777. It’s a project that she released earlier this month with features from Lil Wayne, Childish Gambino, 21 Savage, Kodak Black, Nardo Wick, and Lil Durk. 777 has been praised by fans and critics alike since its release which has many calling it a sharp improvement from her 2020 major-label debut Queen Of The Souf. The success of Latto’s second album can be seen through her performances on tour, and during a recent interview, she explained what pushed her to improve her live sets.
“I did Rolling Loud Miami in 2018ish…I was one of the openers,” Latto said to Audacy. “It was 3 p.m. hot as hell and I waited all the way to the end for Cardi B to perform and I stuck around in the hot sun and I was like ‘nah, I gotta see Cardi perform,’ and I just seen her like put on a show. Like, it was actual entertainment. Dancers, choreography.”
She continued, “She really had me entertained to where I wasn’t caring about the heat or standing on my feet all day. I was entertained. So I took that and ran with it like ‘you know what? I wanna put on a show too.’”
You can watch Latto’s full interview with Audacy in the video above.
777 is out now via Streamcut and RCA Records. You can stream it here.
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Trina really deserves more. The Miami icon has been so good for so long, that it seems as though her consistency gets her overlooked. She’s also well-known for extending her platform to younger female rappers, blessing them with both her encouragement and her cosign. Rappers whose careers she’s helped include City Girls, Kamaiyah, Latto, LightSkinKeisha, Nicki Minaj, Saweetie, and Tokyo Jetz. Fortunately, it seems at least some of the popular ladies she’s assisted remember her help and are willing to return the favor.
On her latest single, “Clap,” Trina reunites with Latto for a frenzied strip club anthem that finds the two rappers playing femme fatale, stressing both their beauty and their danger. I guess you could say that the song’s a warning that looks kill. In her verse, Latto goes from demanding a check for her attention to threatening, “If I reach inside this Birkin, bitch, you better duck.” On the energetic hook, the two encourage their strip club counterparts to make their backsides clap to make that money.
Perhaps having Latto return the cosign can spark a resurgence for Trina, who recently participated in a Verzuz with fellow millennial-era queen Eve. After all, since the pair last worked together, Latto has increased a bunch in standing, including dropping her second album, 777, which debuted at No. 15 on the Billboard 200 led by “Big Energy,” her biggest single to date (No. 3 on the Hot 100).
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2020’s Queen Of Da Souf may have been Latto’s official major-label debut, but it’s on her new album, 777, that she finally arrives. The Clayton County rapper gets an effective redo on her first impression thanks to a timely name change and the world reopening post-pandemic. She makes the most of it on her latest LP, which presents a polished and poised new version of the instantly compelling artist she was on her debut.
You’d be forgiven for not even noticing when Queen Of Da Souf dropped in August of 2020. The world was five months into a global lockdown to prevent the spread of COVID, but that state of affairs also prevented many of the emerging artists who released music that year from being able to spread their art, as well. Despite having strong, deeply-rooted records such as the Gucci Mane-featuring “Muwop” and the Lil Baby collaboration “Sex Lies” on it, Queen Of Da Souf was unable to gain much traction outside of Latto’s previously established fanbase.
It likely didn’t help that she was hampered by her unseemly stage name at the time, Mulatto, which evoked accusations of colorism. Despite not choosing the name she was saddled with as a child performer in her native Georgia, she was forced to field uncomfortable critiques and conversations about intent and perception. Now free of that particular burden, she can direct the focus where it ought to be: on the music.
As much focus as there is likely to be thrown onto big pop swings on the album like the lead single, “Big Energy” – which is her most successful song to date – where Latto continues to shine is in the songs that most heavily draw from the Southern influences of her hometown. Atlanta’s preferred emphasis on booming 808s and snickering snare drums is often the lane in which Latto finds herself most comfortable. On tracks like “Soufside,” “Stepper,” and the pair of title tracks, Latto swaggers and shines, projecting the essence of hip-hop’s foundation of braggadocio.
“It’s Givin” is a standout, stripping down the lush instrumentation on her more radio-ready material to offer a throwback to the skeletal drum machine productions of the late ‘80s. Likewise, “Wheelie,” which reunites Latto with fellow ATL staple 21 Savage, gives her the room to stretch her legs and strut her confident, unapologetic sex rhymes. However, her biggest risks tend to be the ones that pay off the most; on “Sunshine,” she goes to church with Lil Wayne and Childish Gambino, outshining her collaborators on the lush, organ-driven inspirational. It’s by far the most interesting song on the album, even when Gambino can’t help but stick his foot in his mouth by recalling Latto’s old moniker in reference to his own kids.
Fortunately, the other collaborators on the project, like Lil Durk and Nardo Wick, manage to stick to the subject matter at hand. It’s disappointing that she chooses to be part of Kodak Black’s ongoing image rehabilitation campaign (it’s probably only a matter of time until he finds a way to publicly embarrass her with this bet), but Durk and Wick largely do what they’re expected to do. Still, it’s Latto’s show, and like the fond diminutive she’s floated for her growing fanbase, she hits the jackpot, earning her spot in rap’s upper echelon. Whether boasting and bragging on the party joints or turning inward on tracks like “Sleep Sleep,” Latto makes one hell of a second first impression.
777 is out now via Streamcut and RCA Records. Get it here.
Latto‘s 777 is absolutely rolling and showing no signs of slowing down. Two weeks after the release of her second studio album, the Atlanta rapper took a break from her Monster Energy Outbreak Tour to perform a pair of songs on The Tonight Show. While her playing “Big Energy” comes as no surprise, considering it’s her biggest single to date at No. 3 on the Hot 100, she also throws in her verse from the 777 standout “Sunshine,” which features Lil Wayne and Childish Gambino on the album.
Opening with “Sunshine,” Latto begins the performance sitting on a stool with a huge, elegant-looking dressing gown on. Backed by a team of backup dancers, she almost looks like the leader of a praise team, which works well with the gospel references throughout the song. As the song picks up, she stands to roam the stage, bopping along with the live band’s rendition of the song’s beat. The stage clears for the second half of the medley, as Latto removes the gown while the band vamps, and when she returns, she is joined by a pair of dancers who perform some vibrant choreography for the Mariah Carey-sampling “Big Energy.”
You can watch Latto’s Tonight Show performance of “Sunshine” and “Big Energy” above.
Latto recently released her new remix to “Big Energy.” The remix features the sampled artist, the legendary Mariah Carey. Speaking with Nadeska on Apple Music 1, Latto revealed how she felt when she found out Carey was joining the single.
“Really big, really big. Huge, like fall out your chair, get back in the chair, fall out your chair, get back in the chair,” Latto said. “When we started talking about a remix originally, I was like, ‘Mariah, but let me be realistic, that’s just sidebar. I’d love to have Mariah on it, but anyways.’ And Mariah’s actually on it. That’s crazy.”
Latto revealed her A&R, Derek, reached out with the news, and she had the sharp reaction of “Man, get the f**k out my phone.. Stop playing.”
She added, “When she got on the song, I feel like nowadays, like when people do remixes, it be like a little open first, come in and speak and dip for the rest of the record. This felt like a nostalgic remix to me. I was like, she came in and added to the song, she made the song way better. So I was like, I got a real remix. Period.”
