Richardine Bartee
Over the years, I’ve watched Brooklyn-native Afro-Latin recording artist LATASHA go through the many versions of herself. Whether it was the metamorphosis of her name (LA, Latasha Alcindor to just LATASHA) or her choice of personal style and lyrical cadence, I saw how mismatched she is to everything else going on in rap culture—as far as young women are concerned. I watched it all. Yes, even the ‘That’s Rocawear’ video campaign from the early 2010s.
However, if as I assume correctly, ‘Glo Up’ is based on her personal life, she’s one of the first underground rappers to speak about her shedding pounds; getting attention as a result. For as long as I’ve lived, the ‘female rapper’ has been husky, or tomboyish, and didn’t focus on her stature on wax. On the contrary, if that wasn’t the case, she is introduced to the world as the ‘perfect’ woman—a doll to be exact. Her weight isn’t a topic of discussion.
Famously, Missy Elliott (once a chubby young woman on the top of the music charts) rapped about losing a few pounds in her waist (‘Work It’), but that’s about it. In one of the lines of LATASHA’s song, ‘Glo Up’, she shares that a previous boyfriend commented on her weight loss, exclaiming that “Now, she looks ‘fuckable'”.
It’s incredible how men from your past could say such things as if you were the only one in the relationship. Or, perhaps, that is what they’re saying. They are ‘there’ when it benefits them. Emotionally, though, you are left to fend for yourself. Thankfully, we wake up and move on from parasitic types of partners.
Furthermore, I think the latest version of LATASHA is the best one yet. Personally, I enjoy the Dance/Electro-Pop addition. Watch the video for ‘Glo Up’, a single from the musician‘s latest EP, ‘Teen Nite at Empire’. Watch the video for ‘Glo Up’, a single from the musician’s latest EP, ‘Teen Nite at Empire’.
