Music

Probably the album’s first and only true filler track, “Liquor” isn’t a bad song by any means — she’s doing some fun things with her flow in the verses — but Latto has already done the “midtempo sex jam” shtick better several times over on the album by this point. As a matter of fact, “Big Mama” does exactly what “Liquor” does, just ten times better. And that’s the second track on the record; by the time we get to “Liquor” (track 12), it feels tired.

Latto isn’t present on this track — and neither is former collaborator Mariah Carey, despite some fan theories — but her grandma is! “Oh my goodness, your video with J. LO… you look hot!” she quips over a lush amalgam of bass guitar and a pitched-up vocal sample that wails the album’s title in the background. It’s a quick moment, but one that reminds listeners that the Latto of Sugar Honey Iced Tea is operating on a much different level than the Latto of, say, 777.

One of the more amusing throughlines of Sugar Honey Iced Tea is Latto’s dedication to delivery a handful of BBL Baddie bangers. “There She Go” boasts a slightly rock-infused trap beat — parts of the production feel like a softer take on Eazy-E’s “Boyz-n-the-Hood” — and Latto uses the soundscape to flex her power over men and how much better, sexier, and more talented she is compared to her peers. “Big L-A-T-T-O/ B—ch it’s me, thought I told a b—h to put it on the floor/ Lil’ waist with a big bankroll/ I’m a bada– b—h from Clayco,” she spits, adopting a cadence similar to the one Webbie employs on “Independent.” The callbacks to the different eras and locales of Southern rap on this album are abundant, but always intentional.

Latto slows down the tempo on “Settle Down,” which feels like a bit of a bait-and-switch after the burst of energy that is “Blick Sum” — but it’s still an enjoyable vibe in its own right. She really turns up the heat in the second verse when she raises her volume, rapping, “Got these b–ches waitin’ for me to drop/ Know these b–ches waitin’ on me to flop/ You was just a fan before you popped.” Her rapping here is characteristically great — especially that flow switch mid-way through the first verse — but it’s the sugary background harmonies she lays down that truly showcase her musical growth and experimentation on Sugar Honey Iced Tea.

Between 2022’s “Budget” and this year’s “Sunday Service” remix, Latto and Megan Thee Stallion already have quite the track record when it comes to collaborations — and “Squeeze” continues their hot streak.

Both ladies have put out their fair share of Top 40-minded jams, and they lean more into their pop bonafides on “Squeeze” than they have on their prior link-ups. The bass-heavy groove and funky synth embellishments do a lot of the “pop” heavy lifting, as does the tantalizing hook, but both ladies make sure to clock in with time to start spitting. “Hoes talk down, but they daddy think I’m perfect/ Looking at his phone screen, pumping on Jergens,” she quips. Where some of their past pop forays (think: “Lottery” or “Don’t Rock Me to Sleep”) fell a bit flat and felt a bit stiff, “Squeeze” allows both ladies’ humor and cheekiness to shine through. The hints of Atlanta bass make the song feel more authentic than a random disco-pop pastiche.

The Drake influences continue with this track, which feels like something of a sequel to “Broke Boys,” a track from Drizzy and 21 Savage’s Her Loss record. Here, Big Mama is an equal opportunity clowner — everyone can get it, men and women alike. She throws subs at women who have to “wait till they birthday to go out of town” and knocks men can’t quite grasp that she’s “not [their] b—h.” Even though everyone is catching some heat, it’s really the other women that Latto is dragging. After all, when her money is this long why would she be concerned with a “brokey?” And it’s not like she gets her money from her man because, as she raps over the plucky trap beat, “You ain’t never f–k with no boss b—h, I turned you out.” Big Mama is talking big s–t across Sugar Honey Iced Tea, and that attitude and aura is wholly believable in a way that felt premature on her earlier records.

It’s incredible to think, but out of the slew of Sugar Honey Iced Tea guests, Ciara is the ATL OG! The Princess of Krunk gets busy on “Good 2 U,” a roller rink-ready Atlanta bass bop, delivering a breathy, sexy hook that promises that she’ll be good to her man as long as he never changes.

“Good 2 U” is, in a way, the de facto title track, and it’s not just because it’s the first song that finds Latto rapping out the phrase “sugar honey iced tea.” Between the rattling production and the union of two generations of ATL superstars, “Good 2 U” feels like the essence of Sugar Honey Iced Tea — a femme-forward ode to the beauty of Atlanta, from the music to the women to the laid-back but self-assured understanding that anyone who hails from the city is indeed the “sugar honey iced tea.” The track is also indicative of the fact that Latto has fine-tuned her version of pop-rap, and it’s truly a seamless fit for her.

Last year, Hunxho made his Billboard 200 debut with his For Her mixtape (No. 84), and he’s parlayed that success into an appearance on one of the strongest collaborations on Sugar Honey Iced Tea. “Copper Cove,” a smooth, sensual midtempo trap ballad that bears its name from a famed restaurant and lounge in their stomping grounds of ATL, introduces the more R&B-inflected side of the album. Latto approaches the track similarly to the way she attacked the first half of “Big Mama” with a sing-songy, Drake-esque flow, but by the time the hook rolls around, she’s in full singer mode. “F–k a love song/ This that slut me out, spit on my tongue song/ This that make you leave the club and come home/ Come here, let me be the one you love on,” she croons.

Hunxho delivers an Auto-Tune-drenched verse that offers a conversational complement to Latto’s verse. The deep, gruffness of his voice plays well against the way she plays with her upper vocal registers in the hook, both of their Southern drawls coming together for one sultry musical marriage. By the end of the song the pitched-up vocal samples of the “Georgia Peach” return, this time wailing “take your clothes off” in anticipation of the slow jams still to come.

In Latto’s Sugar Honey Iced Tea world, H&M stands for “hurt and miserable,” not Hennes & Mauritz, word to the department store. Essentially the closer of the more rap-focused half of the album, “H&M” find Latto taking a few more swings at her haters. “Y’all be out here trauma bonding, misery loves company/ Like, bitch, I let you keep your nigga, what else do you want from me?/ Ion even see you hoes in my peripheral/ Petty, bitch, at your big age, that’s just pitiful/ I’d come for me too if I was broke and ain’t had shit to lose/ Bougie, bad, and bossy, rich as fuck, I ain’t got shit to prove,” she spits. The “petty” bar is likely a shot at one Nicki Minaj, and it’s a good one; a reminder that Latto is genuinely slick at the mouth in the best way possible. Across the first half of the record, a lot of the hooks have a sing-songy quality that not only play into Latto’s increased flirtations with singing, but also amplify the lowkey levity in the background of songs that present as deceptively simple takedowns.

Teezo Touchdown is probably the most eyebrow-raising feature on Sugar Honey Iced Tea, but he absolutely nails his contributions to the LP’s penultimate track, “Prized Possession.” The two hip-hop stars deliver an emotionally fraught track that explores the push-and-pull of knowing your worth in a relationship — and recognizing when it isn’t being respected. “Soon as I let you hit with no protection, then you got overprotective/ Don’t know why I keep going back, going back, knowing this shit ain’t progressing/ Shit is depressing, worst n—a ever, still better than all of my exes/ Be my n—a and not a detective, know you ain’t going through messages/ I say it’s toxic, you say it’s passion/ Using your love like a weapon,” she spits with a tone that’s somewhere between introspective, fatigued and spiteful.

Teezo sprinkles his magic on the track by way of dizzying vocal stacks and a rap-sung cadence that offers an opposing perspective — revealing that “the trust has been shot” on both side of the relationship. It’s all very Kanye-lite, but it works in the sense that he and Latto meet at an unlikely, brooding medium that results in one of the record’s most evocative songs. As she spits, “I’m a prize, not a possession.”

Given the title, one can’t help but think if this track was originally meant for Nudy’s 2023 food-themed Gumbo album — which housed “Peaches & Eggplants,” a Hot 100 hit (No. 33) whose remix Latto would appear on, alongside Sexyy Red — but by the time Latto’s vocals come in, those thoughts disappear completely.

“Squirtin’ on a n—a, he drinkin’ my piss/ Freak b—h, make him swallow my spit,” she opens the trap banger. In case it wasn’t clear, “Big Mama” was just the warm up, “Shrimp & Grits” separates the real freaks from the fake ones. This is the first full-fledged sex jam on the album, and Latto handles it deftly; her tone drips with swagger and self-assuredness, she’s not convincing us (or herself) of her prowess in the bedroom. Some gentle strings introduce Nudy’s verse, which smartly complements Latto’s with his similarly laid-back approach. While the “Peaches & Eggplants” remix was fun, “Shrimp & Grits” is a much stronger showcase of Latto and Nudy’s potential as a duo.

Originally released in June, just days before her flashy BET Awards performance, “Big Mama” continues the Drake influences of the album’s intro, while setting up a marked tempo increase in it second half. The song begins with a sexy, R&B-infused instrumental over which she croons about man that she “loves in the worst way.” That’s probably the least explicit lyric of the song — and things just get more ratchet, as the production switches to a menacing trap beat that eventually gives way to her chanting “big mama” to close out the song. In her Billboard cover story, Latto touted beat switches as “the thing right now for hip-hop,” and “Big Mama” is prime proof. Through the beat switch, Latto grants a peek into the two modes she taps into across the LP: sultry R&B-inspired rap-singing and hard-hitting bars spit over thick Southern beats.

Latto and Coco Jones are both child stars turned Billboard chart-toppers and Grammy nominees, so it was only a matter of time before they joined forces on a track. Coco serves up some sexy ’90s R&B realness over the thumping, drum-heavy track, setting up a perfect introduction for Latto’s verses. “Hold me down and buckle me up, come put this s–t in drive/ Love how he be liftin’ me up in any situation/ Good sex, inspiration, you got all my concentration,” she spits. Latto spends a lot of time waxing poetic about bedroom happenings on Sugar Honey Iced Tea, but “Ear Candy” offers a bit more substance, as well as a more nuanced and, sometimes introspective, look at how relationships impact her own understanding of herself. Of course, this all falls second to that irresistible melody and Coco’s near-perfect vocal performance; she’s deep in her Jazmine Sullivan bag tonally, and it works beautifully.

In her Billboard cover story, Latto noted that she first heard “Family Matters” — her favorite song from the Kendrick Lamar-Drake beef — while on the way home from a Mariah the Scientist concert. That anecdote ultimately previewed her new unofficially released Drake collab, “Housekeeping Knows,” but also one of the album’s more somber moments in the Mariah the Scientist-assisted “Look What You Did.”

“And I’m feeling something new I can’t explain it/ Heart racin’/ And it only beats for you, I can’t resist/ Oh, look what you did,” Mariah coos over stirring strings to open the song. Her chorus introduces Latto’s verses, through which she slightly tones down the Big Mama act to properly deliver an ode to “big daddy.” Latto makes pretty strong love songs, and her Mariah have very good chemistry. There’s a sense that they’re both making a calculated and hard-thought decision to give themselves over to love for one special person, and that doe-eyed caution reverberates throughout the track. Here, we really get a peek into the balancing act of being an independent “Big Mama” and showing up as one-half of a loving relationship.

“Ion trust no man without no blicky,” proclaims a disembodied voice — presumably lifted from this TikTok — at the onset of “Blick Sum.” “Cause when s–t get sticky, where the f–k that blicky at? Yeah. I ain’t got no blicky, boy!”

After the second half of “Big Mama” teased an uptick in tempo and energy, “Blick Sum” finds Latto in full 21 Savage mode — with a healthy dash of Playboi Carti’s verve, to boot. Across the track, Latto professes her love for the gangstas, pressing a potential lover to “blick sum” if her loves her. She employs an extended sex-as-shooting metaphor with lines like, “Bust for me, like I buss for you/ Ride for me, like I ride on you.” There’s a real power and weight to her voice here; her man may be the one toting the gun, but she’s the one in control at all times. The song closes with a callback to another TikTok (“Oh, okay! Yeah, yeah!”), hammering home the TikToks-as-dialogue motif she established at the beginning of the track.

Kicking things off with a Kanye-esque concoction of haunting, pitched-down vocal layers crooning, “Is this what you wanted?/ Is this what you need?/ F–k your reputation/ It don’t mean s–t to me,” Latto sets up Sugar Honey Iced Tea as an unequivocally cinematic affair. After a bit of crackling static, she launches into a Drake-evoking flow, through which she takes a victory lap and flexes a “new label deal” and the joint baddie-dom of her and her sister Brooklyn, among other wins. “Triple 7 on the neck and you never hearing nobody snatched it,” she spits over sparse synths and a pitched-up sample that chants, “Ain’t nothing like a Georgia girl.”

When Latto first previewed this track during her 2024 BET Awards medley, the entire theatre gave her their undivided attention. Even Grammy-nominated producer 9th Wonder had his interest piqued — and for good reason. “S/O to Me” is the crown jewel of Sugar Honey Iced Tea, four minutes and change of some of Latto’s best and most honest rapping.

“Bye sis, funny thing about it, you can’t look me in my eye, sis/ But let’s get back to how my life is/ You hoes is a puzzling case/ It clearly doesn’t matter if you younger or double my age/ You bitches is barking too much, I wish I could muzzle your face/ Karma’ll deal with you, I promise your judgement awaits,” she spits over old-school 808s, stirring strings, and yet another pitched-up sample. This is Latto in her element, she’s simply floating over the beat, weaving reflections on her childhood with positive self-affirmations as she attempts to make sense of the way her own maturity has shifted her outlook on life, her peers, her haters and herself. She sounds so comfortable on this track that her voice conjures up an image of her rapping on a stoop or in a studio by herself, her soul intertwining with the music as she lays down some of the strongest bars of her career.

Latto has gone through her fair share of beefs and spats in recent years — and though she never names any specific names (save an easy play on Ice Spice’s birth name) — they also feel unequivocally resolved by the end of “S/O to Me.” Give her a mic, a pen and a fire beat, and Latto will deliver every time.