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00:00What's up y'all, it's me, Big Mama, and we are behind the scenes of my December 2024 Ebony cover shoot.
00:08When I first started the Sugar Honey Ice-T album recording process, I basically just was like
00:15telling the label like, I need y'all to fall back, just let me, you know, let me do me. So I wanted to
00:21choose my own beats and work with my own producers and just like, just do everything the way I wanted
00:27to be done versus like what other people had planned for me. Intention was going to translate
00:32and I knew people would just resonate with it because I had really put in my passion,
00:38blood, sweat, and tears for real into this project. So I feel like I was just already claiming it and
00:45putting that energy out there in the recording process, like literally sitting in the studio
00:50with my whiteboard like, no, I'm going to be nominated for this and I'm going to win this, and
00:55I was just being very intentional with everything. So I feel like I did know and everything, my plan
01:01is unfolding the way I knew it would. When I did drop Big Mama, I knew that like my day one
01:07fans knew that I had been experimenting with singing and just melodic feeling stuff,
01:13but like my newer fans, because I had been on this like heavy rap tip for so long, I knew that
01:20it would feel like a switch up to other people, but I knew I didn't want to just allow
01:25myself to have that ceiling on me and my career, so I knew what I was doing and basically just go
01:32there and show you like you just have to trust yourself and trust your end goal and stick to the
01:36plan. This is my third Grammy nomination. I think this one just hit a little different because it's
01:41for my song Big Mama. It's a solo song, it's the only solo song in the category to clock that,
01:45and y'all tried to play me when I dropped that song. We ain't forget y'all said it was trash.
01:51She's Grammy nominated now. I was so blessed to have found people that saw my vision the way I
01:57saw it and allowed me to just have creative control and freedom with this with this project,
02:03so there would be no sugar honey iced tea without my pool, my cane, my grizz, and my pen. I do love
02:10me a good little set. I love me a good matching color with the shoe and I like me a matching bag
02:15with the shoe and I want my headband to match my leg woman, you know. Just like a array of browns
02:22and nudes and like animal print, heavy on the animal print, especially Cheetah obviously,
02:28but I chose that look for the cover intentionally. I think it just read so Lotto, but like an elevated
02:35editorial version of Lotto, like it's still fur, it's still girly, it feels southern in a way.
02:42I don't know if it's the fur or like what, even down to the hairstyle. I think it just read so
02:48Lotto. When I had the shoe as a phone, it just gave the personality and just highlighted the
02:57shoe itself being like a Y2K feeling. It gives me like a sense of individuality that's just like
03:07I was born with. I love being from the south, but like specifically Atlanta, I think I love
03:13the fact that my city embraces each other. I think that's what has allowed us to have such a long
03:19reign in hip-hop, uplifting each other along the way. So like when you think of Atlanta, you think
03:26of this like movement, not just like one standout person. I think we all like embrace each other and
03:32I think that's important. I don't care what nobody say, we front-running in hip-hop right now.
03:37You feel the love, you feel like a sense of like community and just belonging and it make me
03:43make me wear my city on my back and I do it. I think Sugar Honey Ice-T is just gonna age gracefully.
03:49She's gonna be one of those like standout albums in my career that people are always gonna find
03:55themselves going back to. I think the more she ages, the more she will be appreciated.
04:02Obviously my album, like that was such a proud moment for me. I couldn't wait to put that
04:06album out. Sitting in the studio with my whiteboard for so long and like I was so protective
04:14over my album. So when it was out, it was nothing but like celebration. We started filming
04:20Rhythm and Flow the second week of the year and now it's what it's the beginning of December and
04:26I'm closing out tour, getting ready to go to Saudi Arabia and Dubai. Like I've been working from
04:33top of the year to end of the year. This is my chance to like redeem myself as in like to myself.
04:41Like the little girl who originally wanted to rap, like who fell in love with music and wanted
04:47to be a star. I'm in the era of making Alissa happy. Like that eight-year-old little girl who
04:52went up to her daddy was like, I want to rap. Like I want to be a rapper and I didn't play
04:57sports in school. Like I never had a job before. Like she knew she was gonna be a rapper.
05:02That's who I'm doing it for.