City Girls Make "Alter Ego Music" for the Bad Bitch in You

Two young women sit pretty in leggings and long sleeves. They eat Froot Loops in water and wash it down with Sunkist soda on the hood of a candy-purple Cadillac. They pay no attention to the dudes hollering while playing dice on the sidewalk. Soon the two will ride through the streets of Miami with the top down in matching iridescent jackets that read “City Girls.” They're on their way to Flea Market USA to hang with Trina, DJ Khaled, and the rest of Miami royalty.

That's the gist of the music video for City Girls' debut single, “Fuck Dat Nigga,” a tune that landed the duo a spot on Atlanta's hot indie label Quality Control Music alongside giants Migos, Young Thug, Lil Yachty, and others. It sounds like standard Miami-music-video fare, but actually, that's just how City Girls' JT and Yung Miami live.

“That's our culture; that's our lifestyle,” Yung Miami says. “People who make music nowadays, they just go off what's popular or whatever is trending, but we just go off what we listen to. When we make music, we're just being ourselves. No one will sound like this if we just be ourselves and be in our own lane, because no one else sounds like they're from Miami right now.”

Today, “Fuck Dat Nigga” has about 340,000 views on YouTube, and it's been out about a month. It's a loud, bright, and flashy ode to chuckin' deuces at broke dudes, with a beat that samples Miami legend Khia's “My Neck, My Back.” The City Girls' verses are raw and bad as hell. You'd never know it was actually their first time rapping.

“It wasn't something made to blow up. We just made this song having fun,” JT says. “It was no effort, honestly. It was just us being ourselves, and some people did not like it. Some people don't get it, but they'll get it one day.”

“They do get it,” Yung Miami cuts in. “They're just hating. They just want to have reason to not agree with us, that's it. It's a relatable song.”

“Fuck Dat Nigga” is a rougher, modern-day version of TLC's “No Scrubs.” It's two proud, bodacious babes callin' it like it is and lookin' fly while they do it.

“Growing up, I always had luxurious things because my mom always dated guys who had money,” Yung Miami says. “Her baby daddy, he used to hang with Rick Ross, so I had a good childhood. A lot of stuff is new to me as far as the jewelry, but dressing in designer stuff is not new to me.”

Neither are music videos and hanging in the rap industry. Yung Miami's mom was childhood friends with Trina, and the Baddest Bitch is actually her godmother. It wasn't wild for her to end up at Trick Daddy's house playing with his kids. The real "Young" Miami is one of those kids featured in the “In da Wind” video —  and she also appears in DJ Khaled's “I'm So Hood” clip.

But Yung Miami didn't grow up with dreams of rapping. She was just a fun-loving girl from Opa-locka who liked to cheerlead and go to the movies. There were always block parties in the neighborhood, and she learned to love 2 Live Crew and the Slip-N-Slide sound. When she was old enough, she went to teen clubs to hang with her friends from MySpace. That's where she met her best friend.

JT grew up in Carol City and Liberty City. The eldest of her mother's three children, she's among the youngest of her father's 16 — and she left her mom's place to live with her pops when she was 5. The hectic environment nurtured her “bad” side, and though she's always found herself “gifted” at whatever she has set her mind to, she often prefers the unexpected. Schoolwork? Chores? Following the rules? Those were boring pursuits for the lames.

“If they said, 'Don't touch the fire,' I had to see if it was hot,” she says. “I was horrible.”

JT was hardly ever home, and as soon as she met Yung Miami, the two became inseparable.

“She had an aunt that used to just let us do whatever we wanted, and that was right up my alley,” JT laughs. “We just started having the time of our life, and that was so many years ago. She had a car. We had fun. It was freedom, and that's what I like about her. She's a free spirit, and I'm wild as hell. It's just — boom.”

That explosiveness is what's caught on tape in “Fuck Dat Nigga,” and it's that realness that hooks fans from the very first notes.

“My mama raised me like this: 'Don't even talk to them boys if they can't do nothing for you,'” Yung Miami says. “They want your number, but once they get your number, they just say, 'Come see me.' I'm too grown for us to chill. I got a baby, so it's like, what can you do for me? I'm not gonna give you my number just so you can be like, 'Come see me.' You wanna go to the movies, but what you gonna do for me? I need money.”

There's a lot more to come from City Girls. They have a new video for their tune "Where the Bag At" in the can and an EP due for release later this year. They're not trying to stress it too hard. They're just trying to do like Trina told them: have fun, take it seriously, but not let anyone pressure them to do anything they don't wanna do. For these City Girls, the number one priority is to stay real and help other real women like themselves be the baddest ladies they can be.

“This is alter-ego music,” JT says. “If you work a 9-to-5 every day, when you get out off your job, put on a City Girls song and you just a bad bitch then. That's the vibe we going for. You confident then. You just know.”