Is a thinly veiled backronym directed at a ? Not according to : “This is something that just felt Southern to me,” she . Mirroring this brand-friendly regionalism, is built around aggressively adequate Atlanta trap anthems and functionally anonymous readymades that only occasionally reflect the full force of Latto’s talent. These songs do not demand to be played—they ask not to be skipped.
This is particularly frustrating given the strength of Latto’s singles over the past year. While her biggest hits to date are the wedding-ready pop confection “ ” and last summer’s Jung Kook collaboration “ ,” Latto has simultaneously been cutting some of her toughest tracks ever, popping out with newcomer on “Back Outside” and threatening to pull up with “20 black Suburbans” full of goons on “Sunday Service.” Latto has said was inspired by her 2023 song “Put It on Da Floor,” which “sparked a whole new energy for me as an artist.
” Yet both “Put It on Da Floor” and “Sunday Service” are relegated to bonus track status (alongside their star-studded remixes). That energy is sorely missed: When tries to come across brusque and threatening on would-be song “Blick Sum,” it feels silly rather than savage. Silly isn’t a terrible look for Latto, whose simple rhymes are often delivered with an exaggerated wink.
Take “ ,” where she says she’s sick of (“Y’all burnt ’em out”), or the -assisted standout “Shrimp & Grits,” which kicks off, “Squirting on a nigga, he drinking my piss/Freak bitch, make him swallow my spit.” She rarely drops proper nouns, zoomed in on cash, carats, and an amorphous array of men eager to please. And although she’s quick to tease a hater that their boyfriend could be hers, Latto’s raps stay playful enough that even when she tosses off a line like “Body count so low, I might say I’m a virgin,” it scans as sardonic rather than slut-shaming.
But long stretches of are devoid of Latto’s peculiar charms. Tracks with Coco Jones and could blend into any major label rap release; album outro “S/O to Me” aspires to be corny like and sort of succeeds. Uglier still is a raft of populist tracks aimed at Top 40 and Rap Caviar.
The former include feature “Good 2 You,” which exists, and a collaboration that manages to sound like a K-pop B-side without involving a single pop artist; the latter include the ponderous “Settle Down” and lackluster cuts like “Liquor” and “H&M,” where Latto’s impassioned vocals can’t fully zhuzh up run-of-the-mill beats. These lowest-common-denominator plays are a slog on an already too-long album. Even when the album drags, you’re never far from a reminder that Latto is a capable writer with dazzling star wattage.
Especially exciting are “ ,” with Hunxho, and “ ,” with ; Latto’s singing is unexpectedly smooth, and her take on the romantic rap song comes through endearingly cheesy and nontoxic. She deftly balances sweet nothings with nonchalant shit-talk, knocking it out the park over the stadium organ dirge of “There She Go” as she scowls, “Girl, that shit don’t match your legs, where you get that ass from?” The head-and-shoulders highlight is “ ,” where Latto moodily lists off her birthday wishlist, crooning that she needs good dick, oral sex, a pink Glock with a . Then, as she deliriously chants about the state of her undergarments, the instrumental pump fakes and minor key piano spirals in: “Love when he call me Big Mama, yeah, that get the coochie wet/Ho better stick to TikTokin’, mean that with all disrespect.
” Cadences kick into overdrive, Latto’s flow pivoting from jerky (“Money long, cheetah thong, thick as hell, Georgia Dome”) to fluid (“Bitch, I don’t play for the Nets, but I’m gon’ shoot shit up ’bout Brooklyn”) and back again. It’s a brief flash of greatness on an album overwhelmingly satisfied with the mundane..
