There are countless ways to cope with infidelity: You can choose to forgive, call it quits or create a scathing diss song aimed at your unfaithful partner. Rising hip-hop star Sexyy Red went with the last of those options — and it completely changed her life.
During a recent interview with Complex’s Eric Skelton, the St. Louis native opened up about her rapping origins and what ultimately inspired her to enter the game. She said it all began when her ex-boyfriend cheated on her and she turned to music for catharsis.
“My boyfriend was cheating on me with a lame-ass bitch, so I made a song about it,” she explained. “And I made a diss song about him and the girl and her friends. You know, because the friends be in on it too, so I was talking all this stuff about them. And then I showed my boyfriend the song and he was like, ‘Dang, you straight know how to rap. You straight snap.’ And I’m sitting here talking stuff about him, but he was liking it.”
Although he was the subject of her diss track, Sexyy Red’s boyfriend was apparently quite impressed with her bars, so much so he would even ask her to rap the song to his friends.
“He’d say [to me], ‘Rap that shit for them.’ So I just started rapping,” she continued. “Then one day I was just like, ‘Well I’m going to go record the song then, since he said I’m snapping.’”
Sadly, the diss track isn’t available online.
The 25-year-old MC said she decided to write another song and recorded it shortly after. As the record started generating buzz around her city, Sexyy Red started receiving paid gig offers.
“They started calling me, saying, ‘You want to come to this party this weekend? We can put your face on the flyer and give you a hundred dollars,’” she recalled. “I’m like, ‘Yeah!’ So that’s how it really started.”
The up-and-comer has blown up over the last several months, thanks in large part to her viral “Pound Town” track with Tay Keith. Although some believe her success was rapid, she told Complex it took years of hard work to reach her level of success.
“I was doing it since 2019. Shit was not easy,” she said. “It’s a breeze now because I got help, but before that, I used to have to find a ride to the studio, pay for my own studio time, find a ride to my show, give people gas money to take me, give them all I got just to get to this show type shit. It used to be a lot. I had to stand in front of crowds that was not fucking with me. And I’m still putting on the smile, acting like… But I used to be like, ‘Damn.’ Shit got better, though.
You can read her full interview here.
