Flo Milli wants you to twerk in your car to her new album

Flo Milli has spent the past three years winning over the world with her contagious energy and sharp tongue — both in and out of the studio. Hailing from Alabama, the 22-year-old born Tamia Monique Carter has had a similar trajectory to most musicians in the digital age, building a fanbase through TikTok. Songs like the hater-bashing “Beef FloMix” landed her what could have been momentary attention, but instead she ascended from obscurity to virality and beyond with the release of her impressive breakout album, Ho, why is you here? in 2020.

It’s an amusing title, but the record proved the ultimate vehicle for the rapper’s depth of talent, boasting a highly-calculated cadence and biting delivery over bubble-gum trap beats. With You Still Here, Ho?, released last month, Milli felt she still had something to prove to nay-sayers. “It’s a statement for people who talked about me or people who said that I was a one-hit wonder or a TikTok artist, or not versatile,” she tells us. “It’s like, you still here, ho?”

As an early bloomer in the industry, Milli arrived with braces and a baby face at just 19, carrying the confidence of someone much older, something she was instilled with in childhood. “I grew up in a house full of women — all we did was argue,” she says. “That was my practice right there, to stand up for myself.” In high school, she remembers achieving a level of self-belief that many of her peers were unable to attain. “Of course, at a young age, having confidence can be a hard thing because other girls didn’t have it,” she explains, candidly. “They thought I believed I was better than them, but I just was comfortable in the skin that I was in.”

Lending some of that same attitude to listeners, You Still Here, Ho? — a brash and playful 17-tracker — is a light-hearted, head-turning, immediate pick-me-up of an album. With it, Milli has curated a compilation of musical affirmations like “Hottie”, “Big Steppa” and “Conceited”; tracks that ooze self-assurance and invite fans to share in that mentality.

When it comes to her rivals though, if lyrics are anything to go by, Milli doesn’t welcome that kind of confidence; shunning the idea that they might have the courage to compare themselves to her, indirectly disparaging her excellence. “I’m not really a calm person,” she admits, referring to the album’s confrontational quality. “The aggressive tone reflects my personality, it’s who I am. I use it as a way to express myself”.

The album opens with welcome message from the illustrious Flavor of Love star and self-titled ‘Head Bitch in Charge’, Tiffany Pollard, who commands listeners to “get in line, peasants”. It sets the tone for the rest of the record perfectly. “I think I just needed her energy,” Milli says. “She did exactly what I needed her to do and brought everything to life that I wanted.” Milli’s love affair with reality TV — a medium which has inspired much of this album — hits hardest when it comes to Bad Girls Club. In one of the multiple nods to the show, she recreates a confessional sequence in the music video for “Tilted Halo”. As a true BGC stan, she goes on to get lost in the drama that played out across 17 seasons during our conversation, gleefully detailing the most memorable fights.

Standout messages from the album are directed specifically to Black women. On tracks like “P.B.C” — an acronym for “pretty, Black and cute” —she uplifts and carves out space for a community that has disproportionately been put down and disenfranchised. On her lead single “Conceited”, she raps: “You never dated a chocolate bitch / You want a model bitch off of the internet”, celebrating the beauty of her dark skin. 

Filled with “bad bitch anthems”, You Still Here, Ho? serves as the ultimate mood-booster, something Milli reveals was highly intentional. While in the studio, she envisioned her fans “twerking in the car, flipping their hair and voguing” to the music. “I picture them getting lit with their friends. I picture them turning up any way possible,” she says.

And undoubtedly, with Milli as the soundtrack, that’s exactly what they’re doing right now. You Still Here, Ho? opens up a portal to self-possession — a utopia in which Flo Milli is cheering us on, urging us to hop out of our bag and hop in a car to the function.

Follow i-D on Instagram and TikTok for more music.

Credits

Photography Stephen Velastegui