When Yung Baby Tate was a child, she loved her mother’s Monie Love CD so much that she “borrowed” it and never gave it back. It should be a familiar enough tale for anyone whose parents had even the remotest inkling of musical interest and decent music in their collection. There are two major factors that set this particular narrative apart from the usual: One, the fact that young Yung Baby Tate so admired a musical pioneer that so often gets overlooked in the “inspiration” portion of artists’ bios that she not only name-checks her in interviews but also that she so willingly shares the transgression.
Even if it was well over ten years ago, most of us would likely loathe to admit pocketing our mom’s belongings — especially as the second aspect of the story that sets it apart is the identity of Yung Baby Tate’s mother. Like many of today’s talented spate of stars, Yung Baby Tate comes from a musical family. Her government-issued ID reads “Tate Sequoya Farris”; fans of mid-90s alt-hip-hop may recognize her mom, Dionne Farris, who worked extensively with hippie/folk-rap crew Arrested Development and had an impressive, Grammy-nominated run as a solo artist. Tate’s dad David Ryan Harris played in the funk-metal band Follow For Now before working with Dionne on her 1995 album Wild Seed, Wild Flower (Tate says she has had little relationship with her father, being raised mostly by her mom). However, while she may have the star pedigree, she is as self-made as they come, carving out her own legacy by being 100 percent true to herself.
Today, Decatur, Georgia-born Tate is one of music’s hottest rising stars.
and marries it to a sharp business acumen rivaling the biggest, first-name-only stars of the early ‘90s. You know, Janet. Madonna. Michael. Prince.
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by AARON WILLIAMS
HIP-HOP EDITOR
JUNE 2 2021
EDITION 3
JUNE 2021
PHOTOGRAPHY BY: Paul L. Carter
When Fousheé was a child, she decided that she was not cut out for sports when she attended a basketball camp in a skort. The other players laughed at her, but that wasn’t the precise moment that changed her trajectory from “potential athlete” to “destined star singer.” Instead, it was a moment within the training for the game itself. “You have to guard in this little box,” she recalls. “I would always not be in my box. I was confused about the boundaries."
That confusion about boundaries made her bad at basketball — that, and an aversion to running back and forth on every play — but it’s what makes her a fascinating character as a musician. A viral star who was vaulted to fame seemingly by accident thanks to a confluence of technological opportunism, TikTok, and timing, the quirky singer’s eclecticism permeates songs like “Gold Fronts,” “Single AF,” and her trademark song, “Deep End,” as she combines R&B, reggae, rap, folk, and more into a genre-agnostic gumbo of soulful reflections and incisive wit.
Despite her brief detour into athletics, Fousheé always knew that she wanted to be a singer growing up in Bridgewater, New Jersey. Music was in her blood; her mother played in an all-female reggae band in Jamaica and exposed her early in life to an extensive record collection including everything from Brandy to Bob Marley to Celine Dion to Toni Braxton. Drawn naturally to singing and songwriting, Fousheé told Billboard that she wrote her first song when she was just five years old. That inclination led to a short-lived stint on The Voice in 2018.
Via a lengthy Zoom call (that could easily have gone on for hours more), Fousheé reveals an alternate future that could have existed, even if she’s been on her current path since the time most kids were learning how to write their name. “I feel like I would've ended up being a teacher,” she admits. “Half of my family are teachers on my dad's side; my grandmother, my grandfather, my uncle. So more than a good portion of them were teachers… They really wanted me to be a teacher so badly.” However, as is so often the case, life had other plans.
When Fousheé was a child, she decided that she was not cut out for sports when she attended a basketball camp in a skort. The other players laughed at her, but that wasn’t the precise moment that changed her trajectory from “potential athlete” to “destined star singer.” Instead, it was a moment within the training for the game itself. “You have to guard in this little box,” she recalls. “I would always not be in my box. I was confused about the boundaries."
That confusion about boundaries made her bad at basketball — that, and an aversion to running back and forth on every play — but it’s what makes her a fascinating character as a musician. A viral star who was vaulted to fame seemingly by accident thanks to a confluence of technological opportunism, TikTok, and timing, the quirky singer’s eclecticism permeates songs like “Gold Fronts,” “Single AF,” and her trademark song, “Deep End,” as she combines R&B, reggae, rap, folk, and more into a genre-agnostic gumbo of soulful reflections and incisive wit.
Despite her brief detour into athletics, Fousheé always knew that she wanted to be a singer growing up in Bridgewater, New Jersey. Music was in her blood; her mother played in an all-female reggae band in Jamaica and exposed her early in life to an extensive record collection including everything from Brandy to Bob Marley to Celine Dion to Toni Braxton. Drawn naturally to singing and songwriting, Fousheé told Billboard that she wrote her first song when she was just five years old. That inclination led to a short-lived stint on The Voice in 2018.
Via a lengthy Zoom call (that could easily have gone on for hours more), Fousheé reveals an alternate future that could have existed, even if she’s been on her current path since the time most kids were learning how to write their name. “I feel like I would've ended up being a teacher,” she admits. “Half of my family are teachers on my dad's side; my grandmother, my grandfather, my uncle. So more than a good portion of them were teachers… They really wanted me to be a teacher so badly.” However, as is so often the case, life had other plans.
When Fousheé was a child, she decided that she was not cut out for sports when she attended a basketball camp in a skort. The other players laughed at her, but that wasn’t the precise moment that changed her trajectory from “potential athlete” to “destined star singer.” Instead, it was a moment within the training for the game itself. “You have to guard in this little box,” she recalls. “I would always not be in my box. I was confused about the boundaries."
That confusion about boundaries made her bad at basketball — that, and an aversion to running back and forth on every play — but it’s what makes her a fascinating character as a musician. A viral star who was vaulted to fame seemingly by accident thanks to a confluence of technological opportunism, TikTok, and timing, the quirky singer’s eclecticism permeates songs like “Gold Fronts,” “Single AF,” and her trademark song, “Deep End,” as she combines R&B, reggae, rap, folk, and more into a genre-agnostic gumbo of soulful reflections and incisive wit.
Despite her brief detour into athletics, Fousheé always knew that she wanted to be a singer growing up in Bridgewater, New Jersey. Music was in her blood; her mother played in an all-female reggae band in Jamaica and exposed her early in life to an extensive record collection including everything from Brandy to Bob Marley to Celine Dion to Toni Braxton. Drawn naturally to singing and songwriting, Fousheé told Billboard that she wrote her first song when she was just five years old. That inclination led to a short-lived stint on The Voice in 2018.
Via a lengthy Zoom call (that could easily have gone on for hours more), Fousheé reveals an alternate future that could have existed, even if she’s been on her current path since the time most kids were learning how to write their name. “I feel like I would've ended up being a teacher,” she admits. “Half of my family are teachers on my dad's side; my grandmother, my grandfather, my uncle. So more than a good portion of them were teachers… They really wanted me to be a teacher so badly.” However, as is so often the case, life had other plans.
She’s a multi-talented, multifaceted artist who embraces the campy aesthetic of the current, meme-obsessed pop movement
bold, playful sensibilities and an unabashed commitment to doing what she wants,
“I've always been a very bold, out in the open person as long as I feel comfortable,”
I wanted people to see
all sides, all shades of me.”
it's going to take some time for people to give women the respect that we deserve. And that looks like seeing us in every type of room, regardless of who is calling you there.
That means that while you’d be forgiven for thinking of her as a rapper, for her, that means producing, singing, and songwriting as crafts that deserve equal consideration. When I remark on the oft-repeated insistence of modern rappers that they’re not just rappers, Tate is able to break down her own singularity in specific terms, not just the broad ones usually employed by wannabe rockstar rappers feeling boxed-in by the constraints of hip-hop.
“I was singing when I was a baby,” she explains. “So that's the first thing that my spirit, my body, my voice knows, is to sing. Then, producing and songwriting are kind of hand-in-hand; honestly, I started producing and I started writing around the same time. I think I started writing first, but when I say ‘producing,’ I mean ‘creating songs.’ Not just making a beat, but arranging a song. When I was in third grade, I started playing piano. Then, I started to write songs after that and rapping is something that kind of grew out of songwriting.”
However, rap has been central to her identity ever since her self-released debut studio album Girls. Released in early 2019, at a time when the newest crop of female rappers was just beginning to receive heightened attention as a side-effect of the success of Cardi B’s “Bodak Yellow,” Girls — the followup to a 2018 EP, Boys — has the distinction of being a rare project that features all women. It also marked the biggest step for Tate’s career, the demarcation point between being an underground, up-and-coming artist and a star in the making. That’s no accident, either.
“Boys, that was all engineered by me,” she recalls. “I did that all at home. Girls was the first project that I put out that was engineered by a professional. It was just a lot put into it, which made it like, let's treat it like what it is. This is something that we really put a lot of time into, a lot of effort as far as even the visuals of the trailer that was made for it. So, I just wanted to give it that space. This was also, I think, the first time I had as many features as I had on that project. I had never been on a project with features like that. It was a moment and we wanted to give that the space that it deserved.”
Using all women as features on the album was intentional, as well. “There were a lot and there still are a lot of women rappers coming up. But at that time, there were so many people beefing left and right, fighting, in competition, and I really wanted to put something out there that was like, ‘Look guys, we can work together and actually, we should work together because we end up making way better stuff together.’ I think a lot of times people feel like ‘There can only be one’ or ‘There can only be this many.’ No guys, we really can all work together. So, I wanted that to be an example. I'm pretty honored. I feel like it was kind of a catalyst for change in what female rap is now, because I don't think there were as many female rap collaborations prior to the album coming out.”
However, rapping with a different set of collaborators introduced many new fans to Tate’s amorphous array of talents, thanks to her placement on Dreamville’s 2019 group compilation Revenge Of The Dreamers II. After receiving an invitation to the storied Atlanta recording sessions for the then-nascent posse cut concept album, Tate found herself one of just five women to make it onto the final tracklist when she proved that she could hang with the boys club on “Don’t Hit Me Right Now,” a sexually-charged track featuring Dreamville mainstays Bas and Cozz with assistance from the scene-stealing California rappers Buddy and Guapdad 4000. While Tate seems honored by the experience, she still wants to receive credit outside of such performances, preferring to defer that spotlight to her sisters in the hip-hop realm.
“I wasn't even invited as a rapper or an artist,” she makes sure to clarify. “I was invited as a songwriter. So when I ended up actually making it on a project and even actually making it on a song, I was like, "Oh, snap. Okay. That's cool." But yeah, I definitely think
But there's a process, and so I want to take time. And I was just grateful to be there.”
‘I'm a money magnet. Things are not difficult for me. I can do whatever the hell I want to do.’ I am creating a life that I have always envisioned for myself.
I hate being the same.
I hate doing things that people are already doing.
Gratitude forms the basis of Tate’s uplifting, signature single “I Am.” The hook, armed to the teeth with affirmations (“I am healthy, I am wealthy, I am rich, I am that bitch”), is more self-concerned than the average rap brag track, which is usually more attuned to the gaze of others than self-actualization. “I like to be grateful for the things that are here,” she says when I ask whether her affirmations have changed since she manifested the above-stated goals for herself in the wake of the song’s success. “I don't like to be greedy and be like, ‘Well, this happened now. So now I got to get the next thing.’ A lot of times it just stays the same, and just adds on a little bit more, and a little bit more here and there… I still will say those, but now I'm saying,
And it started with those affirmations and it's definitely going to continue with those. But as things start to manifest into my life, I definitely will add some new ones.”
Part of that life includes fruitful creative partnerships with collaborators like Issa Rae. When I inquire why Tate chose to release her latest project — and its R&B-focused deluxe version — with Raedio in light of Rae’s relative inexperience with the music business, Tate’s response is, as always, thoughtful and thorough. “It was seeing the fact that yes, this wasn't a typical label,” she confirms. “Honestly, it was one of the main things that made me want to work with them. Especially, given the circumstances of who my mom is and the experiences that she's gone through in the industry, it was definitely appealing.”
“But I think as well,” she continues, “Knowing that Issa is not just trying to do this music label, it's also she's writing shows and she's having a radio station and all these other aspects that are things I want to eventually get into. It just felt like the best home for Yung Baby Tate and for what I want to do with my career. So honestly, even though it was like, ‘This is a writer and an actress and a comedian,’ she is an extremely savvy businesswoman and it's something that I really looked up to.”
Issa Rae's flagship TV series is often a playground for the intersection of summery hip-hop and progressive R&B — which remains Tate’s sweet spot, even on the deluxe version of After The Rain, which she proudly noted on Twitter contains much more of the latter. “I been saying I’m bout to stop rapping for the longest so I’m happy y’all are really loving these R&B songs,” she tweeted. However, that doesn’t mean she’s giving up rap entirely; of the six new tracks featured on the deluxe version, the clear breakout so far has been the flouncy, TikTok-ready “Focused,” which has already spawned a dance trend that could make it another viral hit for the ever-changing artist. Still, her remarks bare her intention to always push forward, never compromising or becoming complacent
She’s a multi-talented, multifaceted artist who embraces the campy aesthetic of the current, meme-obsessed pop movement
bold, playful sensibilities and an unabashed commitment to doing what she wants,
“I've always been a very bold, out in the open person as long as I feel comfortable,”
Where today’s stars catch a viral single and scribble an autograph on the first legal document set before them in the hopes of cashing out while the table is hot, Tate instead patiently, consistently held her cards, systematically dealing out a string of self-released projects until she had such a powerful buzz behind her that a luminary like Issa Rae came calling.
It was through Rae’s record label, the Atlantic-backed joint venture Raedio, that Tate released her latest album, After The Rain. Nominally an EP but with all the emotional heft and authenticity of a full-blown long-player, Tate’s patience paid out big; the EP, lifted by confident, self-aware anthems like “Rainbow Cadillac” and its breakout single “I Am” featuring Mobile, Alabama upstart Flo Milli, has all eyes riveted to Tate. She’s giving them plenty to look at, with fashion-forward, glittering wardrobe choices that point to
when she wants, how she wants, and the devil may care otherwise.
In fact, one of her ensembles for her Uproxx shoot — with its sheer top — comes up in our phone interview as she prepares to take a trip to Jamaica for her upcoming 25th birthday. When I ask her about whether she worries that her risque looks might cause consternation incommensurate to their transgressiveness — young women in entertainment have been ripped to shreds in public opinion for less — she doesn’t shy away from any potential confrontations.
she asserts. “I've always wanted to allow other people to know that it's okay to be themselves too. I just like to laugh and make people laugh and have a good time in life because YOLO.” With that philosophy, the fun-loving multi-hyphenate hasn’t just carved out a lane for herself, she’s paved a whole new road — one that is almost guaranteed to take her wherever she deigns to go.
I wanted people to see all sides,
As you might expect from a progeny of such talented individuals, Tate showed her inclination for making music herself relatively early in life. Her stage name has a tinge of irony, considering her mom would have had her believe that she was a child prodigy. “My mom has this beat I made when I was four on her computer, but I don't remember doing that kind of thing,” Tate reflects. However, while she doesn’t entirely believe that proud parental anecdote, her mom remains an inspiration; besides giving her business advice (“To know that these businesses are businesses, and to treat them as such,” as she puts it), the two have occasionally shared the stage together, as well.
“So we actually do have this one song, which is one of my favorites by her, but it's called ‘Fair,’” Tate enthuses, noting that the inspiration goes both ways. “And every time she performs it, she's like, ‘This song was inspired by my daughter’ because as a kid, I used to always be like, ‘No it's not fair, it's not fair.’ And she would be like, ‘Life is not fair.’ [She] just made this song about it. It's a really dope song, it’s one of my favorites. Whenever I'm at her shows, she'll call me out and be like, ‘Here's my daughter right there.’”
Those early experiences informed not just Tate’s business acumen, which would come in handy when she was approached by Issa Rae about putting out her EP, After The Rain, in 2020, but also how Tate sees herself as an artist and structures her process. She began that process in earnest 2015 with the self-released EP, ROYGBIV. “I actually made a ROYGBIV years prior to the one that I actually ended up dropping and just wanted to explore colors through sound,” she remembers. “What I wanted it to be was an introduction to me, to all parts of me because I'm a very diverse and versatile artist.
all shades of me.”
That means that while you’d be forgiven for thinking of her as a rapper, for her, that means producing, singing, and songwriting as crafts that deserve equal consideration. When I remark on the oft-repeated insistence of modern rappers that they’re not just rappers, Tate is able to break down her own singularity in specific terms, not just the broad ones usually employed by wannabe rockstar rappers feeling boxed-in by the constraints of hip-hop.
“I was singing when I was a baby,” she explains. “So that's the first thing that my spirit, my body, my voice knows, is to sing. Then, producing and songwriting are kind of hand-in-hand; honestly, I started producing and I started writing around the same time. I think I started writing first, but when I say ‘producing,’ I mean ‘creating songs.’ Not just making a beat, but arranging a song. When I was in third grade, I started playing piano. Then, I started to write songs after that and rapping is something that kind of grew out of songwriting.”
However, rap has been central to her identity ever since her self-released debut studio album Girls. Released in early 2019, at a time when the newest crop of female rappers was just beginning to receive heightened attention as a side-effect of the success of Cardi B’s “Bodak Yellow,” Girls — the followup to a 2018 EP, Boys — has the distinction of being a rare project that features all women. It also marked the biggest step for Tate’s career, the demarcation point between being an underground, up-and-coming artist and a star in the making. That’s no accident, either.
“Boys, that was all engineered by me,” she recalls. “I did that all at home. Girls was the first project that I put out that was engineered by a professional. It was just a lot put into it, which made it like, let's treat it like what it is. This is something that we really put a lot of time into, a lot of effort as far as even the visuals of the trailer that was made for it. So, I just wanted to give it that space. This was also, I think, the first time I had as many features as I had on that project. I had never been on a project with features like that. It was a moment and we wanted to give that the space that it deserved.”
Using all women as features on the album was intentional, as well. “There were a lot and there still are a lot of women rappers coming up. But at that time, there were so many people beefing left and right, fighting, in competition, and I really wanted to put something out there that was like, ‘Look guys, we can work together and actually, we should work together because we end up making way better stuff together.’ I think a lot of times people feel like ‘There can only be one’ or ‘There can only be this many.’ No guys, we really can all work together. So, I wanted that to be an example. I'm pretty honored. I feel like it was kind of a catalyst for change in what female rap is now, because I don't think there were as many female rap collaborations prior to the album coming out.”
However, rapping with a different set of collaborators introduced many new fans to Tate’s amorphous array of talents, thanks to her placement on Dreamville’s 2019 group compilation Revenge Of The Dreamers II. After receiving an invitation to the storied Atlanta recording sessions for the then-nascent posse cut concept album, Tate found herself one of just five women to make it onto the final tracklist when she proved that she could hang with the boys club on “Don’t Hit Me Right Now,” a sexually-charged track featuring Dreamville mainstays Bas and Cozz with assistance from the scene-stealing California rappers Buddy and Guapdad 4000. While Tate seems honored by the experience, she still wants to receive credit outside of such performances, preferring to defer that spotlight to her sisters in the hip-hop realm.
“I wasn't even invited as a rapper or an artist,” she makes sure to clarify. “I was invited as a songwriter. So when I ended up actually making it on a project and even actually making it on a song, I was
like, 'Oh, snap. Okay. That's cool.' But yeah, I definitely think
But there's a process, and so I want to take time. And I was just
grateful to be there.”
it's going to take some time for people to give women the respect that we deserve. And that looks like seeing us in every type of room, regardless of who is calling you there.
“I like to be grateful for the things that are here,”
Gratitude forms the basis of Tate’s uplifting, signature single “I Am.” The hook, armed to the teeth with affirmations (“I am healthy, I am wealthy, I am rich, I am that bitch”), is more self-concerned than the average rap brag track, which is usually more attuned to the gaze of others than self-actualization. she says when I ask whether her affirmations have changed since she manifested the above-stated goals for herself in the wake of the song’s success. “I don't like to be greedy and be like, ‘Well, this happened now. So now I got to get the next thing.’ A lot of times it just stays the same, and just adds on a little bit more, and a little bit more here and there… I still will say those, but now I'm saying,
And it started with those affirmations and it's definitely going to continue with those. But as things start to manifest into my life, I definitely will add some new ones.”
Part of that life includes fruitful creative partnerships with collaborators like Issa Rae. When I inquire why Tate chose to release her latest project — and its R&B-focused deluxe version — with Raedio in light of Rae’s relative inexperience with the music business, Tate’s response is, as always, thoughtful and thorough. “It was seeing the fact that yes, this wasn't a typical label,” she confirms. “Honestly, it was one of the main things that made me want to work with them. Especially, given the circumstances of who my mom is and the experiences that she's gone through in the industry, it was definitely appealing.”
“But I think as well,” she continues, “Knowing that Issa is not just trying to do this music label, it's also she's writing shows and she's having a radio station and all these other aspects that are things I want to eventually get into. It just felt like the best home for Yung Baby Tate and for what I want to do with my career. So honestly, even though it was like, ‘This is a writer and an actress and a comedian,’ she is an extremely savvy businesswoman and it's something that I really looked up to.”
Issa Rae's flagship TV series is often a playground for the intersection of summery hip-hop and progressive R&B — which remains Tate’s sweet spot, even on the deluxe version of After The Rain, which she proudly noted on Twitter contains much more of the latter. “I been saying I’m bout to stop rapping for the longest so I’m happy y’all are really loving these R&B songs,” she tweeted. However, that doesn’t mean she’s giving up rap entirely; of the six new tracks featured on the deluxe version, the clear breakout so far has been the flouncy, TikTok-ready “Focused,” which has already spawned a dance trend that could make it another viral hit for the ever-changing artist. Still, her remarks bare her intention to always push forward, never compromising or becoming complacent.
‘I'm a money magnet. Things are not difficult for me. I can do whatever the hell I want to do.’ I am creating a life that I have always envisioned for myself.
That pioneering outlook applies to other aspects of Tate’s career, as well. Take, for instance, her colorful style. On any given day, she can be a bright, eye-catching fantasy, embracing a Candyland aesthetic that wouldn’t be out of out-of-place at a comic convention or the Disneyland Main Street Parade. Other times, her margin-pushing looks can force even veteran photographers to consider new angles, bringing out their best.
Although she initially took these creative leaps herself, she now relies on stylists like Abigail “Abs” Petit-Frere, who likewise brings a hyper-saturated flair to her attention-getting looks. “Styling myself, I can do that, but it just takes so much time,” Tate observes. “I have to go to the mall. I have to go to this store, that store, buy stuff, da-da-da-da-da. And then also think about the rest of my life. So I prefer a stylist. If
it's a show, or I'm going out, or something like that I'll just style myself.
But for shoots, video shoots, anything like that, it has to be a stylist. I
do not have the time to think about all that.”
It was Abs who styled Tate for the intensely viral “I Am” video, which split the difference between Lil Kim’s monochromatic “Crush On You” ensembles and Beyonce’s posh Black Is King imagery. While sitting for a recording of Behind The Video at Uproxx Studios, Tate provided further insight into the thought process that went into crafting the video’s unique, signature looks. “When the stylist pulled this out for the fitting, I was like, ‘Oh yes, this is the one,’” she recalled, name-checking Beyonce, Missy Elliott, and Kendrick Lamar (himself inspired by the infamously creative Missy).
Both the video and the explainer highlight yet another way Tate blazes her own path stylistically: Her nails, I note toward the end of our call, are fan-shaped as opposed to the coffin-shaped or pointed claws that are the current trend du jour. She chuckles at the fact that I’ve noticed but agrees that they’re a marker of her rebel posture. “Yeah, definitely.
So I've always gone against the grain but it's not something that I consciously am like, ‘I have to be different. What's going to make me different today?’ At this point a part of my personality and a part of who I am. I'm just not the same.”
I hate being the same.
I hate doing things that people are already doing.
Stylist: Marlos Kornegay (@marlosizm)
Hair Stylist: Audielle C (@officialhairbyaudi)
MUA: David Velasquez (@mugopus)
Photography: Paul L. Carter (@langstoncarter)
Designed by: Daisy James (@djamesdesign)
Yung Baby Tate is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.