Say what you want to about Saweetie’s stop-and-start album rollout, but the Bay Area bombshell has been on a roll lately. After the UGK-inspired “Richtivities” rebooted the rollout, “Nani” has become a sleeper hit, landing placement in a number of high-profile syncs, while her feature on LL Cool J’s “Proclivities” gave her the co-sign from a hip-hop legend. She returns to her 808s-and-soul-samples bag — her most effective mode, in this writer’s opinion — for “Is It The Way.” Pairing a trunk-rattling Texas beat with a loop from Jill Scott’s 2001 hit “The Way,” Saweetie contemplates all the attention she gets while combining the best parts of her last two singles.
In the video accompanying the song, Saweetie struts the streets of London, causing all the British boys’ heads to turn in her haute couture looks, which include a truly stupendous pair of heels and Union Jack-bearing short shorts that just scream “Spice Girls.” The whole video is a throwback to the British R&B invasion of the early 2000s (think Craig David’s “Fill Me In”), which could provide a fruitful new avenue for the particular form of millennial nostalgia that Saweetie has embraced throughout her career. The trendsetter has been making a solid push for a comeback, and with a few more tracks like this, the turnaround could truly be just around the corner.
Watch Saweetie’s “Is It The Way” video above.