How Ya Like Me Now
As her star power shines beyond hip-hop, Sexyy Red is focused on blocking out the haters and enjoying the wild ride of fame at her own speed.
Interview: Stacy-Ann Ellis
Editor’s Note: This story appears in the Summer 2024 issue of XXL Magazine, on stands now.
Sexyy Red is on the move. At the end of May, the St. Louis rapper strutted into Orlando’s WWE NXT ring to a crowd chanting her gas-me-up song-of-the-summer contender, “Get It Sexyy.” The lead single from her In Sexyy We Trust mixtape, released that same month, scored Sexyy her first top 10 on the Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart and became her first top 20 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 as a solo artist. As she speaks for this interview on Zoom shortly after her wrestling debut, Sexyy is en route to the studio to cook up another hit with her “Rich Baby Daddy” collaborator, Drake, to keep the momentum going. “I’m outside, I guess,” she jokes in response to foregoing bedtimes these days.
For the polarizing rap sensation born Janae Wherry, it’s only going up from here and fast. Sexyy’s Ghetto Superstar (2021) and Hood Hottest Princess (2023) projects and their breakaway singles (“SkeeYee,” “Pound Town,” “Looking For The Hoes (Ain’t My Fault)”) have made their marks. There’s promise of a joint album with her day-one producer, Tay Keith, but there’s still her debut album to release. A photo on Sexyy Red’s Instagram story in May showed a studio session with a whiteboard that included songs featuring Cardi B, Latto, Ice Spice, GloRilla, JT and more. While Sexyy is tight-lipped about the project, something’s brewing.
There’s always stuff going on in Sexyy Red’s corner. The 26-year-old rhymer is unapologetically herself, and it shows from social media to her sexually explicit rhymes. She’s complained that she was turned away from visiting kids at a school for smelling like weed this past April, has supported Donald Trump in the past, and even had a MAGA-hat-inspired prop with the words “Make America Sexyy Again” on stage during a performance in June and received mixed reactions. Sexyy insisted on X, formerly known as Twitter, that same month that she doesn’t endorse any presidential candidate.
Despite weighty expectations, speculations about the reasons for her success and naysayers, Sexyy is moving at her own pace, staying true to who she is, and just having fun with it—all this while being a mother of two. From dodging industry mess, to her hidden singing voice, to how her Drake collab “U My Everything” morphed from a hood love anthem to the redefinition of “BBL Drizzy,” Sexyy Red takes stock of this moment in time. Take it or leave it.
XXL: You’re fresh off making your WWE NXT debut, and you’ll be hosting NXT Battleground in Las Vegas. How did it feel being in the ring, tag-teaming with wrestlers Je’Von Evans and Trick Williams?
Sexyy Red: It was fun and exciting. It brought me back to back-in-the-day times, like watching TV, but now I’m standing there in front of these people really talking to them. It’s crazy.
The entire crowd was screaming your name, completely different from the faces you might expect at your shows. There’s even a video of teeny boppers going up to “Get It Sexyy” at prom. Would you say your star power is moving beyond hip-hop?
Yes, definitely. I guess they like my personality, so it opened other lanes for me.
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Was reaching all these diverse pockets of fans part of the plan?
No, I wasn’t planning on that. It makes me proud. I just be happy seeing people like the stuff I love and I make.
Earlier this year, you told The Breakfast Club that you don’t feel like a celebrity. Are you starting to feel like one now?
Uh-uh. I still feel normal. The way I live my life, I still live like a normal person, but I just do some stuff. I’m normal and I have a rapper life, so I do both.
What does normal look like?
When I’m in my rap mode, I’m probably gonna ride in a black truck or a nice car. But if I’m just being regular, I’ll probably get in a Monte Carlo or something. I’m under the radar. I don’t live like a rapper. If I don’t gotta go to the studio then I’m just living regular, for real.
Is keeping that balance important to you, even though you’re clearly becoming this huge star?
It made me who I was. It could be important to stay like that because you wanna appeal to your supporters, but I’m not even trying to do it for them. I’m doing it for me. So if I evolve, then I evolve, but I’m not trying to do nothing for nobody else.
Speaking of evolving, it felt like you branched out with your sound between Hood Hottest Princess and In Sexyy We Trust. How’d you change the approach?
To me, it’s more different vibes on there. Usually I go for “hood ratchet,” I guess. This time it was more singing songs on there. It was all different types of genres.
Is there an album in the works, and with it, will that direction change again?
I just really go with the flow, however I’m feeling. I don’t try to be like, “This specific tape’s gonna be about this.” If I feel like, That’s a good song and I think they’ll like it, I’ll sit with my team, too. They’ll tell me songs they like. I’ll tell them songs I like. We just put them together.
On your Instagram story in May, there was a dry-erase board with what looked like a tracklist on it. Was that the album? Will any of those songs be on there?
Is it gonna be on where?
The next project, which looked like an album. There were 19 songs on the board with features written down.
So you saw the board where it wasn’t scratched off?
Yeah, and it had names like Cardi B, GloRilla, JT, Ice Spice, Latto, Kodak Black…
Nah, I ain’t saying names. I’m saying, so you can see the names on the board, like the names of the songs?
Yeah.
Oh, because them the songs that are on the project that I just dropped like a week ago.
OK, so what’s the next project, then? That board had names and titles on it that weren’t on In Sexyy We Trust. You probably have dope stuff with the rap girls in the chamber.
That didn’t have nothing to do with that board. That board was my team putting together some ideas they had and they came and presented it to me and I gave them my opinion. That’s how that went.
Alright then. So, one of the more playful songs on In Sexyy We Trust is “U My Everything,” with you and Drake rapping over Metro Boomin’s “BBL Drizzy” beat. How’d that song come to be?
Did you hear the song?
Yeah, it was fun. You were getting in your singing bag on the hook.
To me, I wasn’t even singing. I just was talking. I was rapping. People would call it singing, but
I wasn’t trying to sing. I was just playing. Just like a person is not a singer and then they just get on the song and hum on the song, that’s all I was doing. I wasn’t trying to really sing.
So, you’re saying you’ve got a real hidden singing voice back there.
I do. I think I do. I think I know how to sing, for real. Like if I really try, I know I would have a good voice.
What’s stopping you?
I’ve been thinking about taking singing lessons.
If you could collaborate with someone on a singing album or song, who’s on your list?
I like Summer Walker. I did a song with Summer. I like Drake. I did a song with Brent Faiyaz. I don’t know, I like a lot of different stuff. But the way the [“U My Everything”] song came about was because me and Chief Keef were talking and he was saying that I should do an R&B song.
As soon as I went to the studio, I played a beat and we knew what to say. I recorded the song, I freestyled it in the booth, sent it to Sosa and he loved it. He was gonna send the verse back, but he told me he was stuck. My project was gonna drop, so I ain’t had no choice but to think about somebody else I could put on that. Drake was finna get on another song, but he wasn’t feeling the song he was supposed to go on either. Then I just started sending him every song off my tape except the one I knew me and Chief was finna do.
After Sosa said he couldn’t do “U My Everything,” and Drake needed a different song because none of the songs on the tape was his vibe, “I said, you wanna try ‘U My Everything’?” He’s like, “Yeah, I’ll do that one.” It was a whole bunch of people supposed to get on the song, but Drake was the one that ended up really doing it and sending his verse back. We sent it to a lot of hood people—people that was in Chief Keef’s bracket, like 21 Savage—but we ended up going with the real singing version. That made the song a different vibe.
It feels like that’s what it was supposed to be. The perfect happy accident.
Yeah, I was thinking that, too. Like, y’all only heard the finished product. I kind of had an attitude because I wanted it to be a hood love song, like gangsta. But it turned into a singing song once me and Drake was on there singing. Maybe it was meant for him to get on that song. Everything happens for a reason.
Did you follow the beef records going back-and-forth with Drake, Kendrick Lamar, Rick Ross and some others? Is that something you pay attention to?
I just do me. I’m not for the drama. I just do my music and stay out the way. I’m not in this high school sh*t where I’m beefing with people. If a b**ch diss me, I’m not even gonna acknowledge the b**ch on the track. I’ll act like I ain’t even see the sh*t. I don’t even want everybody saying, “Oh, now Sexyy Red’s beefing with…” No, I’m not even gonna let nobody know what’s going on.
Joe Budden implied on The Joe Budden Podcast in March that Drake makes money off artist’s deals, and said why else would he be hanging out with Sexyy Red so much. You waved it off as “dumb” on X, but what do you really think?
Why would I have to pay somebody to hang out with me? That’s basically what he was saying. He was saying we pay Drake to promote us and do this, this and that, and hang out with me. To turn me up. Me paying somebody to hang out with me is crazy.
Do you know why he might’ve made that comment? Where would he even get that from?
He’s just being a hater. I guess it’s something towards me, ’cause they say him and Drake cool. Drake and him follow each other and everything, but I guess it’s me. He don’t think nobody wanna hang out with me or something.
To be clear, is there any business attachment or business interest with Drake at all?
Hell no. We just friends. That’s my rich baby daddy, for real. If I call him, I need something, he gonna do it. If I call him and ask because I’m running low on some money—that ain’t never happened—but I’m just saying, I know he would do that for me. That’s a good friend.
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Now that you’re six years into rapping, do you think people are starting to understand the root of who Sexyy Red is and why you make the moves and music you do?
They’re starting to understand me a little bit, but I really don’t care if they don’t because if you get it, you get it. If you don’t, you don’t. Whoever meets me and we click, that means they understand me. They understand where I come from. But if you don’t, that means you’re trying to learn or figure it out. But that’ll take you to sit back and see, “Why does she act like this? Where does she come from?” I came from something different from you, so I’m not gonna act the way you act or how you expect me to act. The people that don’t get it, they wasn’t raised like me, so now they gotta figure it out.
Is it that they overlook why you do what you do? Like last year when you went to a high school to give boys money for prom haircuts and bundles for the girls. It seemed like a disruption, but there was a genuine reason why.
Exactly. Y’all worried about the wrong stuff. Y’all worried about the fact that Sexyy Red came to the school. They’re not worried about what I came to do. They just think it’s crazy. I was going to school, and I was the same way. They act like there ain’t people at the school that act just like me.
Can you understand why they might be hesitant or trip over some appearances? Since at this age and in this era, kids can be impressionable.
No, I don’t. I mean, sometimes. I ain’t gonna lie and act like I don’t be tripping because sometimes I be tripping. But I’m just expressing myself.
Sometimes people have a more rigid lens of what’s considered “acting up.” Like another high school that recently turned you away for smelling like weed. In other places, that may feel like nothing because it’s legal.
It’s legal where we’re from. We was in St. Louis, and in St. Louis, weed is legal. But she [the administrator] was lying on me, anyway. Just ’cause I’m in a group with people, that don’t mean you could just turn me around because you’re saying my group of people smells like weed. I just had a baby. How you know I’m the one smoking? That was just on some hating sh*t. You could have turned my crew around, but I came to do my due, you know? The kids wanna see me.
So, what’s next for you?
I’m at the studio. I’m over here finna record a Drake record now.
In a year of some pretty noteworthy highs, have there been any challenges you’ve had to conquer as well? You’re a superstar, but you’re still human.
Yeah. I mean, for me, stuff be personal. If I’m overcoming some challenges, it’s personal stuff. Like, dang my kids, or stuff like that. That’s the only stuff I worry about because I wanna be with my kids.
Shout-out to you. A mama and a working woman.
Exactly.
Read Sexyy Red’s interview in the Freshman issue, on newsstands now. In addition to interviews with the 2024 Freshman Class and producer Southside, there are also conversations with Mustard, Ski Mask The Slump God, Rubi Rose, Ken Carson, Ghostface Killah, Lola Brooke and more, plus, a look back at what the 2023 XXL Freshman Class has been doing. Also, there are stories on the ongoing scamming and fraud plaguing hip-hop, and how podcasters and streamers are playing a major role in rap beef. The issue is on sale here, along with some exclusive Freshman merch.
