After the sophomore album, City On Lock (an all too fitting title for the times), from City Girls was leaked on, of all days, Juneteenth, an enraged Yung Miami and JT hit back at hackers with, “Fuck y’all dead ass,” and followed that sentiment up by releasing the record today, along with the video for the lead single, “Jobs.” After two years of ups and downs since the jailing of JT for credit card fraud, the duo (rising to more mainstream prominence in 2018 after being featured on Drake’s “In My Feelings”) has found the time to record fifteen new tracks that coalesce to form the overarching theme of: “I ain’t toleratin’ broke ass men in my life or in my pussy.” Not wanting to waste any more of their precious time, JT, freshly released from prison in March, is not the only one to have endured a recent trauma. Yung Miami, too, has just been dealt a blow with the shooting of Jai Wiggins, the father of her son, Jai Jr.
Yet despite these struggles, Yung and JT continue to show their playful, take no prisoners spirit on a record that iterates repeatedly their innovation on how to secure a bag no matter what the circumstances. While capitalism might be a broken system for some, City Girls are still about it if it means the man in their life can buy them the finer things. And, of course, they relish the financial security of their own making with the opening track, “Enough/Better,” a declarative (as are all their songs) statement that boasts, “Another comma, millionaire status/A cool one, twenty on the Patek/Dope bitch, magic/I live a poor bitch dreams/Coco Chanel me, please.” While JT was locked up, Yung added to the drama of the situation by getting pregnant with the child of Pierre “P” Thomas, the CEO and co-founder of City Girls’ label, Quality Control Music. But their success through all these travails is what makes them pause all the more to marvel, “I’m fightin’ loss, fightin’ demons and anxiety/I really used to sleep on palettes/Now I’m sittin’ in the condo like it’s a palace.”
The thirty-six second “Skit” builds upon the album’s thesis that City Girls have asserted their dominance over the rap game in the face of setback after setback, noting, “Bitches was never rappin’ about somethin’ good/Get money, pussy, until my City Girls came out/Little dirty bitches wanna be City Girls so bad but ain’t even travel.” This will later set the tone for the track “Flewed Out” featuring Lil Baby (as in “the top twenty winners will get flewed out,” to quote Yung Miami in the “Twerk” video).
“Jobs” is the ultimate proclamation of City Girls’–and their refusal to offer something for nothing any longer. This extends into the time they’re willing to give to men. If they have nothing to offer, then, as Beyoncé famously said, “Boy bye.” Re-emphasizing the sentiments established by the “No Scrubs” manifesto of TLC, “Broke Niggas” asserts, “Broke niggas don’t deserve no pussy.” Full-stop. An introductory beat recalls the sounds of early 00s staples from the likes of Juvenile and Trina, with Yo Gotti featured for added “real trap shit” flair. On the subject of “pussy” (which is always what the focus is on when it’s not money–then again, the two topics are inextricably linked when it comes to the capitalism of a patriarchal society), the next song is fittingly called “Pussy Talk” and features, more than somewhat scandalously, Doja Cat, whose seedy past with regard to racism was only just unveiled. Still, she aids in City Girls’ cause of reminding broke asses not to come near them as they sing,“Pussy be like, ‘Can you afford me nigga?’ Broke niggas in my face, pussy ignore these niggas.” Elsewhere, it’s proudly asserted, “This pussy from the hood/This pussy from the projects/This pussy so ghetto…/Turn a nigga gang gang/He gon’ go to war.” This last lyric being a bit too close to home now that Yung Miami’s baby daddy just died via similar circumstances.
The tongue-in-cheek, 1980s-flavored MC feel of “That Old Man” is accentuated by the repetition of the phrase, “Put, put, put some money in the slot and the pussy will pop/Wind it up, wind it up like he jack in the box” to commence the track before JT raps with her usual hauteur, “All these niggas all up on my dick/They just wanna fuck a famous bitch/So I made him get in line, made him buy a ticket/I make a nigga pay a fee right before he lick it/I’ma ride that dick like a broom on Wicked.” Once again equating sex and its power over men to something monetizable, the duo switches tack slightly on the title track, “City on Lock” featuring Lil Durk. Paying homage to the areas of Miami from which they hail (said neighborhoods being the reason why they call themselves City Girls), with JT specifically name checking Liberty City, she begins the lyrics with, “I’m from Libby City/Nah, bitch, I ain’t from South Beach/I raised me/Bitch, my mama was in the streets.” As for Yung, from Opa-locka, she weighs in with, “I’m from Opa-locka/I got some bitches and some niggas that’ll bust for me/So don’t fuck wit me.”
The moody antagonism of this narrative is counteracted by the following, “Winnin.” A dramatic, slow sonic build leads into Yung Miami and JT asking, “Where the niggas who winnin?” A chorus that finds them laying claim to their own status as such, after so many years of losing, of struggling to get out of their economic situation while doing everything from stripping to working a regular bullshit job like the one showcased in the “Jobs” video. So it is that they also have the right to ask, “Who really talk that shit and really live it?”
The uptempo “Come Outside” is another anthemic nod to their hometown of Miami as JT declares, “Let me show you what a bitch from Miami ‘bout”–which, again, according to these two, is securing their bag and making sure they don’t waste time on no scrubs. Nor do they trifle with girlfriends or side bitches as they brag, “I got a bitch scared to come outside.” Sounding like Samantha Jones with the line, “Half of these niggas ain’t shit in bed,” it doesn’t mean this pair won’t still entertain a “gentleman” for the sake of a little material benefit.
Slowing down the pace again with “Flewed Out” featuring Lil Baby, the latter contrasts the beat with his fast-paced rapping, including the verse, “Shorty really love me, she just scared I’ma leave/Give a couple thousand every time that we creep/We ain’t makin’ nothin’ competition, we just leasin’/Only hittin’ baddies, can’t be fuckin’ ’round with decent/Bitch tryna get flewed out for the weekend.” Yung Miami complements his “rules” about women who qualify for getting “flewed out” with her own stipulations, including, “Gotta spend a hundred if you really want it flewed out/Pussy make him pack it up and move out/Hair worth the last name and new house/Fuckin’ on a private my mood now/Let him eat this pussy on the G5/Plenty niggas tryna hit, had to hit ’em with the deny/Tell him that he gotta spend a bag to get a reply/Suckin’ him dead, he in the coffin.” Alas, images of boning on a plane feel like they only exist in an alternate universe now, what with private jets causing an uproar among the masses and public ones hardly suitable for “sexy time” amid post-COVID-in-existence traveling.
When banging in the “friendly skies” fails, however, one supposes there’s always the pedestrian rodeo… of the bedroom. So it is that the sulky, impulsive beats of “Rodeo” pair perfectly with the arrogance of lyrics like, “I make him grow, like Pinocchio/I’m a freak, like a Scorpio/I’ma ride you like a rodeo/I got my spurs on, San Antonio/I’m a thoroughbred, you a phony ho/I’m young and I’m sexy and reckless.”
What’s more, “I’m a mothafuckin’ city girl. Period,” goes the intro to “Double CC’s,” yet another affirmation that neither Yung Miami nor JT will ever go back to settling for a garden variety boo as they vow, “He ain’t never ever meet another bitch like me/I never ever let a broke nigga wife me/He gon’ blow it on this pussy but it’s real pricey/I want double CC’s/You don’t get shit free/I want double CC’s/Boy, this pussy ain’t free.” Once more commodifying their most valuable asset–the pussy–many might see City Girls’ take on relationships as the antithesis of feminism, and yet, it is precisely because they view men as pawns in their own game toward securing wealth that they’ve flipped the script on the usual form of objectification. Rather, they are in control of how they’re being objectified, using it to their advantage with the knowledge that most men are swine who can’t be stopped from chauvinism short of plucking all their eyes out, so might as well goddamn profit from it. Quid pro quo, as it is said. And, so long as a woman is consenting in that agreement (unlike the fuckery of the Harvey Weinstein gambit), why not?
The ride or die sentiments of “That’s My Bitch” speak to the (hopefully) unbreakable bond between Yung Miami and JT, having already been through so much together in spite of still being in their twenties. So it is that Yung sings, “Long nails/Chanel/If all else fails/I know my bitch coming out there.” JT, meanwhile keeps things focused on the main thesis of the record, which is collecting sugar daddies to ensure never having to be subjected to the horrors of a so-called “real” job. So it is that JT wields the nonsequitur (in relation to a potential bestie anthem), “Want me to grip your dick with two hands/Turn my baby into my sugar daddy/I want a rich ass nigga, fuck yo cheap ass.” Same, JT, same.
The second to last track, “Friendly,” addresses the fake love of the type of trolls in JT’s comment section, particularly after her imprisonment. Thus, JT cuts to the chase with the opening lines, “Hoes in my comment section on that friend shit/Knowin’ they don’t like a bitch on that pretend shit/Want me in jail ’cause they don’t want me to win shit/Now I’m back with a motherfuckin’ vengeance.” That she is. And with Yung at her side to underscore, “Fuck wit’ JT, you fuckin’ wit’ me, you gettin’ stumped/This ain’t what you want,” can’t nobody bring this duo down. And so, “Friendly,” as it turns out, is more of a friendship song than “That’s My Bitch,” with the loyalty displayed between the two at its zenith.
To conclude their triumphant return after a period of uncertainty, “Ain’t Sayin Nothin” confirms, ironically, that for all their talk of wanting sugar daddies, they’re perfectly capable of taking care of themselves, and always have been. In fact, JT offers the perfect anti-Father’s Day (since the album was released just a day before it) position with, “Middle finger to my daddy (fuck him)/Why a sucker had to fuck my mammy? (why?)/Left us and he traumatized us badly/Created him, a savage/Hustle hard just to get cabbage/’Cause growin’ up, a bitch never had it/What you know about struggle?” In essence, this is the question posed by both women who will forever be affected by the neighborhoods they came up in, therefore driven to never lose the zeros at the end of their paychecks that they’ve finally accrued. One might say they’re going to be borrowing heavily from the “Jenny From the Block” lyric playbook in years to come.
At the same time, there are certain moments when this fixation about a man’s financial status reaches heights of grotesquerie, as though a woman can’t fend for herself without the buttressing of a rich dude. In this way, City Girls’ messaging doesn’t quite level up with the strong independence of other female rap and hip hop titans like Megan Thee Stallion, Beyoncé or Nicki Minaj, who tends to keep her lyrical spotlight on all things sexual–not to mention heralding the majesty of her more famous than J. Lo’s backside.
With the majority of the songs barely clearing the three-minute mark, City Girls have also solidified the precedent of the average listener’s attention span being more suited to the time frames of Instagram or TikTok videos, tapping into the zeitgeist that’s here to stay. Even if the retro element of relying on a man for dough might be better off disposed of so as to demonstrate that a puta has total agency.
