Ahead of releasing her breakout debut single “Icy Grl” in 2017, Saweetie earned a Bachelor’s degree from the University of Southern California. Saweetie was already making moves in her rap career while attending college and has cited how important her degree is to her. But attending a school where she was oftentimes the only student of color in the classroom also took a toll on her, to the point that she now says the experience “stripped my authenticity.”
Saweetie recently sat down with The Breakfast Club for a conversation about her career and upcoming projects. Host Angela Yee commended Saweetie for completing her degree in the interview, saying that “sometimes people think that you can’t be authentic as a rapper if you also went to school and did well.” But Saweetie feels as though her college experience forced her to conform:
“That’s so ironic because I feel like college is what kind of stripped my authenticity from me because, when you’re going to a predominately white school, you kind of feel like you have to perform sometimes. Not speaking for everybody, but at least from my experience. So if anything, I feel like after college, I was kind of getting back to who I was before then. But being in a world that’s not your world is uncomfortable, you have to adjust, and I felt like I had to conform a lot because sometimes I’d be the only Black or biracial girl in class. So if anything, I feel like I’m finally getting back to me.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Saweetie said that her success didn’t happen by luck. Rather, she’s been working hard at achieving her goals since grade school: “I have run into people who I was cordial with or who I was friends with and they always tell me that where I’m at right now makes sense. Because I was always ambitious. I’d be top student for my academics, I was female athlete of the year, I was popular throughout my whole life. So people who knew me before this knew that it makes sense for what I’m doing.”
Watch Saweetie’s full interview with The Breakfast Club above.
Saweetie is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.