Who are the City Girls?
As hip hop has evolved throughout the century, many prominent groups have risen and fallen. On December 3, 1992 and February 11, 1994, Jatavia Johnson (JT) and Caresha Brownlee (Yung Miami) were born in Miami, Florida. A few decades later, and they would rise to be one of the most prominent rap duos in the 21st century
The Rise of the City Girls
The City Girls released their first track ”F*ck that N*gga” in 2017 and their debut mixtape ”Period” in 2018 which could be considered their claim to fame. Period features hit songs such as ”Take Yo Man”, ”Where the Bag At” and ”How to Pimp a N*gga”. But what is so appealing about these songs? Their success could be contributed to JT’s quippy verses or Yung Miami’s cheeky one liners, but the overall themes of these songs include playing men and taking their money… the true city girl lifestyle. Truthfully, its rare to see female rapgroups like thus prosper because they rarely appeal to male audiences, especially when talking about scamming them out of their money, but that’s where the uniqueness of the City Girls comes into play. The girls that live it get it, and the girls who don’t… don’t. Yet, the City Girls have still been featured on the songs of many prominent male rap artists, like Drake’s Drake’s ”In My Feelings” and MoneyBagg Yo’s ”Said Sum”. Why? Every man wants to play a trick, and every woman wants to be a city girl.
JT= Jail Time
In June of 2018, Jatavia Johnson surrendered herself to the state and was sentenced to 24 months of prison for card fraud. As mentioned before, the girls that live it get it, and JT lived it. This prompted the infamous phrase ”Free JT” which can be heard in many of the City Girls lyrics and in other rap artists’ songs (“Realer” by Megan Thee Stallion). With Jt in jail, the City Girls should have flopped, but Yung Miami managed to keep them alive.
With the focus off of their recently dropped mixtape and the attention on JT’s prison sentence, Yung Miami had to quickly figure out how to keep the City Girls relevant, and thus was their introduction to mainstream culture
Flewed out… Period!
With JT in jail and the production of new music officially halted, Caresha took to more untradutional ways of keeping the City Girls cukturally relevant. When shooting a music video for Twerk ft Cardi B, Caresha took to instagram to propose a competition.
The competition took social media by storm. Twerkers from all corners of the earth entered this competition, and true to her word, the top 20 winners were flewed out…all expenses paid for. From then, the meaning of City Girl changed and became more digestible. It became about young women having fun and being out on the town, but a bag is always involved, whether it be through scamming, pimping, or working.
Yung Miami’s accent and Miami upbringing had a lot to do with the commercialization of her phrases such as ”flewed out”, ”period”, and of course “city girl”. Fans were obsessed and also immpressed by her resillience seeing as rapping was JT’s idea originally. Her lovable personality and determination to carry on the City Girl legacy was what kept the group afloat until JT’s release in 2019.
JT FREE
Jt was released from jail in October of 2019, and released into the custody of a halfway house . On October 3, 2019, she released ”JT’s first day out” signaling thar the City Girls were back and in business. Soon after, they released their debut album ”City on Lock” which was a massive success. They continued to build upon the social media foundation Caresha created for them, including skits in their music videos and staying active on all social media platforms.
Now the City Girls have grown beyond compare. They’ve had wonderful success on tik tok, with almost all of their sounds going viral. JT has produces some of the most iconic verses since her release, and male artists seem to be clamoring to secure themselves a City Girls feature.
But, like they say, its all about the bag and the City Girls know how to get to one . One of the best displays of City Girl culture is Caresha’s new podcast ”Caresha please!” funded by none other than P. Diddy (her sugar daddy). Caresha knows how to play the game, and she ensures that the City Girls are here to stay.
