Saweetie Wants You to See Her Sweat

She’s not yet the rapper she aspires to be. At least she finally knows what it’ll take.

- By Hunter Harris. Photograph by Arielle Bobb-Willis

Saweetie wants to go to boot camp. The rapper has been thinking about it since last year when she originally planned to release her first album, Pretty Bitch Music. Now that album is finally dropping in a few weeks. Or it’s dropping in a month. Or she needs to go back to the studio to work on it more. Maybe it’s one song away. Saweetie’s not sure yet— but she does know that as she refines it, she needs to refine herself, to do the work she’s been wanting to do since she was signed.

“Vocal lessons, stage presence, body movement,” she begins, listing the skills she’ll try to perfect during a two-week intensive training program this month. She is sitting in a window booth at a restaurant in West Hollywood, wearing round sunglasses, a black tank, and a diamond-encrusted crucifix necklace, her layered bob a shade of mustard. “I’m going to tell you the reason why I don’t have a strong stage presence: It’s because I’m not in tune with my body. I might be very feminine with my style, but I’m actually very masculine. I grew up as a tomboy. I could throw a football. I could smack a volleyball. I could outrun a lot of men. Now”—she says, laughing—“I can walk a mean walk!”