Flo Milli has become ‘that girl’ she envisioned in high school
Flo Milli always felt different from her peers growing up, believing she was destined for greatness. For her, the writing was always on the walls — and in the stalls.
“In high school, I used to have a lot of girls that used to hate on me. And as a child, I didn’t really know how to deal with that. So, I would talk to my goddad about it. He would … speak life into me,” said the artist. “Before school started, early in the morning, I would go in the stalls and just write everything that I want to be, like ‘I’m that girl,’ or whatever I’m feeling about myself. And then, I would just say it in my head when I would walk through the halls … the more I said it, the more I, like, became it.”
The Alabama native now has much of the rap world
believing it too. Flo Milli recently released “Fine Ho, Stay,” arguably her best album.
The rising rap star is steadily breaching her way into the conversation of hip-hop’s top female emcees, but she knew it was only a matter of time.
“The power of the tongue, period; I’ve always been taught that is very
powerful,” said Flo Milli, 24. “I would speak things into existence, even as a young kid. Everything I have now, I would just say it. And saying it over and over, writing it down just makes it more real because your mind just has to see it through.”
What she has manifested presently is a 14-track project boasting production from hip-hop super producers such as Juicy J, Bangladesh and ATL Jacob. The “Fine Ho, Stay” title was chosen from a comment on social media after a post of her two previous album title names, “Ho, Why Is You Here?” and “You Still Here, Ho?,” went viral. She thought the poster’s suggestion was hilarious.
But what isn’t a laughing matter is her music. While the previously released tracks “Fruit Loop” and the funky “BGC” don’t appear on the album, she didn’t leave her fans with a musical deficit. She jump-starts the EP with the swaggy, trap-beat led tracks “Understand,” “New Me” featuring Anycia and “Neva” featuring Monaleo — reminiscent of early 2000s Southern rap with updated sonics and showing her boastful attitude and animated vocal presentation.
When she’s not threating to “hit that ho with a two-piece,” Flo Milli stretches herself musically and thematically. The album’s biggest track, the melodic “Never Lose Me,” recently sat at No. 15 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 2 on the R&B/Hip-Hop Streaming Songs chart.
While her aggressive, high-energy records serve their purpose, it’s her vulnerability that gives the new album its wings, showing a rarely seen softer side in tracks like “Toast,” the sensual “Edible” with Gunna and “Can’t Stay Mad,” where she emotes, “When you love me like that/ The best I ever had/ You take me out my attitude/ I cannot stay mad at you (mad at you).”
“It’s kind of hard for me to talk about love and all that, but you know, it’s probably like a little tribute to somebody; I can be nice sometimes,” she coyly joked about the song. “I wanted to show that more on this album, just versatility … I came on the scene as a rapper, but I’ve always sung in the church since a kid. So, it’s really not nothing new to me, but (it is) to other people.”
Flo Milli’s priority now is music, but she’s not limiting herself to recording studios. She hopes to resume modeling and begin acting.
For a young woman who once felt like an outsider, she has become “that girl” she always envisioned, one many want to emulate.
“I just feel like I can do anything in the world,” she said. “Sometimes,
I be in shock. I be like, ‘Wait, I gotta own this moment’ and not try to move on and be like, ‘OK, I want this, I want that.’ You gotta actually accept and appreciate what you already have and realize that, you know, you used to be praying for this.”