
Caresha Brownlee, 24, a.k.a. Yung Miami, squats down on the stage at New Yorkโs Irving Plaza earlier this month to ask the security guard what heโs doing. โWhy not?โ she says into the microphone, negotiating on behalf of a woman sheโs invited to the stage who is being denied access. Miami shifts her weight to the other hip, her thigh-length iron-straight hair falling to the other side of her shoulder, down her bell-sleeved peanut-butter-colored latex leotard. Sheโs been allowed to bring several other fans onstage, and caused no trouble. Why not one more volunteer? The audience starts to boo; eventually, security relents.
Together with Jatavia Johnson, 25, who goes by JT, Miami is one half of City Girls, a Florida-based rap duo. This year theyโve experienced a remarkable, Cinderella-type come up, and have faced considerable difficulty. Since June, JT has been in federal prison, locked up on credit-card-fraud charges, which is why Miami has been performing solo on the groupโs first tour. In New York, sheโs the imperturbable center of the short, energetic set, passively nailing the simple choreography and barely moving her face, which makes her appear unbothered โ but not unhappy. โWe do what the fuck we want to do,โ she declares, after emerging victorious in the dispute with security. โPeriod.โ
The debut City Girls mixtape, named Period, was released in May, and Miami and JT have made it their signature to say โPeriodโ at the end of their statements, to emphasize that they mean what theyโve said, and also as a way to show wisdom. Saying โPeriodโ communicates that they expect to have to painstakingly punctuate their points in order to be heard. A lot of women can relate. Period.
A little over aย month after their mixtape was released, City Girls annexed a piece of rapโs most coveted real estate, appearing on Drakeโs โIn My Feelings,โ this summerโs single-best-performing song. In August, Issa Rae, the creator and star of HBOโs Insecure, wrote that the groupโs music, which appears prominently in the showโs third season, had come to โreally defineโ its latest episodes. โIn season three, Issa is trying to support herself and make the best of her situation, and trying to have fun,โ said Insecureโs music supervisor Kier Lehman. โCity Girls embodies that. Like: Even if things are tough in a lot of ways, I can still enjoy moments in my life.โ
It might not seem like City Girls, raised in poverty in Miami, have much in common with Rae, a Stanford graduate who spent her formative years in Los Angelesโs Windsor Hills, one of the countryโs wealthiest black neighborhoods. But like Insecureโs main characters and target audience, City Girls are ambitious, not just trying to survive but striving to unlock success. Theyโre becoming adults at a time when young people canโt count on ending up financially better off than their parents. Wages are low and job security is scarce, though thereโs the possibility of finding safety by developing a following online. Have you questioned your worth while seeking validation? Attempted to scrape a life together while keeping up appearances? Then the City Girls story may be recognizable to you, too.
Yung Miami and JT grew up together around Opa-Locka and Liberty City, landlocked neighborhoods about a half-hour drive from South Beach. Theyโve been friends since childhood, starting City Girls just months ago, when JT wanted to make โa regular diss track about girls in the neighborhoodโ and decided Miami would be the ideal person to record with, even though she had never rapped before. But JT โ who sometimes hides her braces by keeping her glossed lips closed, but slips into big grins easily โ quickly assessed that their personalities complemented each otherโs: JT was outspoken, with a gift for talking her way into things, while Miami was more guarded, using her pageant-contestant good looks as a form of diplomacy. โMiami brings the glamour and I bring the attitude,โ said JT.
They uploaded their first song, which was built around a sample of the early-millennium pussy-praising classic โMy Neck, My Back (Lick It),โ and in late 2017 they were discovered and signed by Quality Control, the well-connected management house and label that developed Migos, the pop-chart-topping rap trio. The name City Girls was a gift from Quality Control co-founder Coach K, who was inspired by the way the duo proudly introduced themselves during their first meeting as being โfrom the city.โ โEvery dude want a city girl,โ Coach K said over the phone from his home base in Atlanta. โA city girl has arrogance. Walk-with-her-head-up type shit. You canโt run no game on a city girl. Sheโs already been tested. When youโre raised in the city, you gotta adapt. You gotta have wit.โ
JT tells me in an email from Tallahassee Federal Correctional Institution that her upbringing was โcomplicated.โ According to the Miami New Times, sheโs among the youngest of her fatherโs 16 children. After seventh grade, she was left on her own, sometimes staying with an aunt, and other times with friends. โYou gotta just do it where we from,โ she said in a recent video interview, recounting a story about how she learned to drive. โNobody teach you shit. You learn from experience.โ Miami had a more comfortable childhood: Her mother was close with local bigwigs like the rapper Trina, and was respected as an OG around town. โBig drug dealers used to fight over her,โ Coach K said. โMy momโs boyfriend had a lot of money at that time, and I had a good-ass childhood,โ Miami confirmed. โIโve always been safe.โ
Before things took off, Miami leveraged her knack for looking nice on Instagram, where she started a business called Caresha Collection, selling clothes, wigs, and hair extensions. โI figured that if people were asking me where my outfit came from anyway, then I could make money if I was able to say: โThis is my outfit, this is my website, click on the link.โโ
JT worked day jobs, at Whole Foods and Burger King. โI always had a job,โ she told a filmmaker who released a short documentary about City Girls in collaboration with Quality Control this August. But she still struggled to make ends meet. โEvery two weeks, $500? $600? Like, what Iโma do with that? They need to pay people more. The rush with scamming was you gonโ get all that stuff you wanted. In a bad way, but you was gonโ get it.โ You can glimpse the pleasures of her life around this time in photos she posted: a digital camera for a vacation, the services of makeup artists for nights out, gifts for her niece.
Prosecutors in JTโs fraud case argued that in 2016 and 2017, she used a handful of stolen credit-card numbers to buy clothes and gift cards from stores in the mall. She was arrested in June 2017 at a Nordstrom, after completing the purchase of a pair of shoes. A couple months later, she and Miami met Coach K and Pierre โPeeโ Thomas, Quality Controlโs other founding partner, and by Christmas, City Girls had released their first official single.
JT pleaded guilty to aggravated identity theft in January, and was sentenced to 24 months in federal prison. Her lawyer provided a schedule of City Girls gigs leading up to a performance at the BET Awards in June โ the judge agreed to push back her surrender date. A week before she was set to go in, her lawyer requested another delay. โThis is due to a recent co-sign from Drake,โ he explained, citing her meteoric festival bookings and playlist placements, and concluded: โThe defendant is a star.โ Ultimately, the requested extension was not fully granted, but JT was permitted to perform at the awards show, and finish her verse for Drake, who asked Quality Controlโs Pee for this favor in return: โHeโs like, โPlease, tell them donโt change nothing.โโ
Before she began serving her time, Pee encouraged JT to speak openly about her past. โI told her, โJust embrace it,โโ he said. โItโs so hard to get people to believe that theyโll have opportunities out here. So I was telling her donโt be ashamed, that maybe she can use her platform and her choices to encourage somebody else to make a better decision.โ Now heโs less focused on the fairness of her punishment than encouraging her through it. โPeople have had worse charges and got lighter sentences,โ he said. โBut the system weโre in is not designed for minorities to win. So you just gotta do your best to stay out of their system.โ
Unlike, say, drug dealing, card scamming is an increasingly popular crime, with a relatively low barrier to entry. โYou donโt have to be a criminal mastermind to pull this off,โ one economist told the New York Times in 2016. Kโyanna Barber, a 24-year-old living in Oakland whoโs rumored to have been romantically connected to Drake and is thought to be the โKBโ or โKikiโ he shouts out to on โIn My Feelings,โ said that scamming has been common for years. But itโs become even more prevalent recently, with the ubiquity of social-media flexing and the stress to keep up that accompanies it. โThe rise of scamming is synonymous with the rise of Instagram,โ Barber said. I donโt know if Instagram made scamming more popular or if scamming made Instagram more popular, but they go hand in hand. If you want to get designer things, nice cars, the baddest bitches who want the nicest shit, then scamming is like step one.โ
Even people like City Girls, who earn stable incomes from music, can feel like their claim on relevance is fragile. Social apps may nudge people to covet nice things, but most of all they incentivize engagement, paying off those who grab attention and keep fans entertained. In turn, like models, political pundits, and regular citizens, musicians often defy logic online, reshaping and upgrading themselves in pursuit of positive feedback. Has someone had plastic surgery or just applied some kind of beauty filter? Does a rapper have real beef with another rapper, or are they just performing a character, like some kind of WWF wrestler?
City Girls are familiar with the pressure to fake it until you make it, but their music is designed to give women the determination theyโll need to succeed in spite of that pressure. They rap about using men to get ahead, with blush-inducing bluntness. Emerging alongside celebrity fembots who adhere religiously to social mediaโs exaggerated beauty and lifestyle standards, their candor is pleasantly jarring, making them seem uniquely worldly wise and alive.
On โWhere the Bag At,โ a song about demanding money, JT repeats the catchphrase I need a n**** who gonโ swipe them Visas. In a song called โMillionaire Dick,โ Miami bargains plainly: N****, break bread, if you want head. One of my favorite City Girls songs, โNot Ya Main,โ can apply to any relationship a person has, not just a sexual or romantic one. Miami and JT say together: โBoy, Iโm not a lame. Period! Iโm not a game. Period!โ Why do such basic assertions โ that a woman and her time should be respected โ feel so courageous and empowering?
JT has said that City Girlsโ straightforwardness is, in part, a response to the men in rap who belittle women and get away with it: โIf you pay attention to male lyrics, when they fuck a bitch, they make fun of them.โ But they also speak without a filter to build morale among listeners who experience the same frustrations โ like being broke, or not being taken seriously โ and donโt have a platform to vent. โItโs not about fucking n****s for money,โ Miami said. โWe want women to be confident in standing up to men for what they want. Not taking no shit from no man.โ Indeed, when you hear a woman rap โI was beating the block, like a savage / Now all I do is shop and get my ass licked,โ itโs hard not to be delighted by the power theyโve managed to claim.
โI donโt think theyโre political,โ said Coach, โbut the situations that theyโve been put in are political. This world is male-dominated and crazy. Miami and JT, theyโre the voice for women who have voices, but donโt get to use them. Theyโre like, Oh I got a voice? Then we gonโ really let them have it.โ
But itโs tricky for any act to break through, and particularly for women. โThe voices of women are missing from popular music,โ said Stacy L. Smith, the USC professor who, as part of the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative, published a 2017 widely read report about gender in the music industry in 2017, finding that women comprised just 16.8 percent of artists on musicโs top charts. This lack of representation can reinforce itself, one industry expert said. โWhen you put a womanโs voice in a mix thatโs 70 percent men, it bleeds the playlist.โ
In this context โ and in the streaming era, when fans consume personalities as much as music โ an artistโs chance at success can hinge on their sense of humor and likability. โAs a female artist, people have to feel you as a person. If I donโt like you as a person, what am I looking forward to?โ asked Miami, pointing to the success of Cardi B, who in April had a record-breaking 13 songs on Billboardโs Hot 100 chart. โCardi can make you laugh. She can make you cry. You can feel where she came from, so you can actually feel happy for her.โ (Cardi B, who is married to Migos member Offset, is also a City Girls fan. After throwing a shoe at Nicki Minaj during a Fashion Week party in September, Cardi posted a statement saying sheโd acted in response to comments Minaj made about her abilities as a mother, and captioned it โPERIOD.โ)
There hasnโt been a chart-topping female rap duo since Salt-N-Pepa peaked two decades ago, and gatekeepers once encouraged women in rap to have co-signs from men: Trina emerged from Miamiโs Slip-N-Slide records, Lilโ Kim from New Yorkโs Junior Mafia crew, and Mia X via the New Orleans dynasty No Limit. But Cardi Bโs rise may be opening a door for new social-savvy female acts, as the industry looks to duplicate her success, and technology looks to drive Cardiโs fans to more relevant content.
JTโs admirers have framed her as a kind of folk hero, perhaps because her predicament calls attention to gulfs in power, between men and women, or the wealthy and everyone else. Itโs tempting to identify with and cheer on underdogs whoโve challenged the status quo, even if theyโve violated rules along the way. โWhen City Girls said โWhere the bag at?โ they were critiquing capitalism. โWho gonโ swipe them Visas,โ is a metaphor for the redistribution of wealth to scammers and the proletariat. The โCโ in โCity Girlsโ stands for communism. JT is a political prisoner,โ Twitter user @DD_McC wrote in August, referencing the groupโs lyrics. However reaching, thousands of people liked and retweeted the joke in nodding response.
Yung Miami was on tour for a month this summer, and flew home to avoid missing her sonโs first day of school while traveling. โHeโll be calling me like, Mommy where you at? I miss you. Why you leaving me? You always leaving me,โ she said. โItโs hard when I canโt be there for my baby.โ Sheโs responsible for looking after her siblings as well as her son, leaning on support from her family, and her sonโs fatherโs family. She weathered City Girls controversy on her own in August, when fans called her out for social posts she made in 2011 and 2013, disparaging Haitians and homosexuality. โI understand that my comments were insensitive and have offended communities of people that I love,โ she said in an apology.
Miamiโs father was once in prison, and her mother is incarcerated now. She says the day her mom went into jail โfelt like a funeral.โ While JTโs in prison, sheโs focused on maintaining a positive attitude. The two can talk every day, on text or video chat through the inmate messaging service Corrlinks. โIt sucks for her. Itโs really bad,โ Miami said. โBut I donโt like to look at the negative. Godโs timing is always right. When JT comes home, itโs gonna be the perfect time.โ
Listening to City Girls, you get the impression that the worst thing that could happen to a person is to be lacking, not just in money or status, but in mental stability. If youโre not doing well, Miami explained, โyou a hater. Donโt got shit going for yourself but you be on Instagram judging somebody elseโs life.โ When attention is a currency, and when we allot much of it to the apparent success of others, itโs easy to become anxious, even terrified of irrelevance.
In a June livestream with fans, JT talked about how becoming a semi-public figure had allowed her to glimpse peopleโs worst instincts. โSome of yโall are really trolls in this world. Yโall would do anything for someone to respond to yโall negative asses,โ she said. Then she paused to remind everyone that she understands what itโs like to feel insignificant. โEverybody on my team used to ask me, โWhat is wrong with you? Why you so negative, why you so mean?โ I was so negative and mean โcause I was facing a charge!โ she said. โNow Iโm asking, โWhy are yโall so negative and mean?โ DM me! We gonโ talk about why you talk so nasty about people. Are you jealous? Are you feeling like your life is behind? You feeling like you not gonโ ever make it? Whatโs wrong?โ
โI never imagined being somebody. I always thought it was a certain type of people who could make it. Not my kind of people,โ JT wrote to me. Now she dreams of a long career for City Girls, where she and Yung Miami โleave the game as icons, nothing less.โ In her life, she wants to โbe rich, happy, and with my man. Starting a family and shit.โ Having suffered the consequences of chasing clout more directly than most, and then having earned real success legitimately, she and City Girls are in a unique position to help people feel seen, and worthwhile. โYou have your days in life alone, that you feel like you just canโt do it,โ JT said. โBut you can. I can!โ