Sexyy Red: ‘I represent the people with no airs and graces’

“Trying to live a normal life is difficult when you’re famous,” the St Louis-raised rapper Sexyy Red admits to Dazed. 

Taking a rare break from her raucous, red-haired rap persona and giving more of an insight into the everyday person who sits behind it all, she continues: “Sometimes y’all be so annoying. If you see me with my babies bagging up groceries, then get the fuck away from me. No photos!” 

Unwinding in the studio – with her adorable, lap-sitting infant son Chuckyy giggling periodically at my British accent – it’s clear I’m in the presence of someone well aware of fame’s potential to be cruel, especially towards working-class Black women hoping to create better financial outcomes for their families. Big Sexyy, as she likes to be called by friends, is still processing what it feels like to be a trending topic. 

“I feel like with me, the more famous I get, the more people will see me as a threat,” she says, carefully choosing each word. “As I get bigger and more viral, there’s going to be more and more people who want to harm me, 100 per cent.”

In her music this mother of two projects a larger-than-life confidence, very much embracing the role of the care-free devil on your left shoulder designed to inspire pure mischief, while also consistently making all the scandalous men in her life feel like petulant insects. “If you put your trust in a man, then goofy hoe… you’re a sucker!” is the revealing battle cry at the heart of “I Don’t Wanna Be Saved”, for example. 

This backdrop makes her peak-behind-the-curtains candour in conversation genuinely refreshing. However, just like someone who’s suddenly realised they’ve revealed too much and now needs to put their superhero costume back on to divert the attention, the rising artist effortlessly shifts in conversation from vulnerable to pure provocation. “I want to shit on these bitches,” Sexyy Red brags, chanting the words out melodically like someone who can hear a woozy trap beat in the back of their head at all times. Every sentence she speaks naturally feels only a few steps away from evolving into a hit chorus. 

“I like making people mad! When they are talking crazy in the comments about my appearance, people ask: ‘Are you sad?’ I swear to God, this shit doesn’t affect me one bit. It’s more like: isn’t it crazy that someone thinks about me so much that they want to post something? My job is to shit on these bitches and make them mad, and I am very good at it.”

Sexyy’s breakout 2023 single, “Pound Town”, was built around doom foreboding keys; orgasmic ad-libs; a ground-shaking, Miami-bass honouring beat that gyrated forward mischievously; and surely one of the raunchiest earworm hooks of any song released in the 2020s so far: “My coochie pink / my bootyhole brown / quit playing n****; come suck a bitch’ toes!” The down-to-earth music video, meanwhile, contained so much passionate twerking it made Megan Thee Stallion’s choreography seem PG-rated by comparison.

These are the contents of an evangelical Christian, Fox News pundit’s very worst nightmares, but regardless, the Tay Keith-produced hood anthem tore up TikTok and also the clubs. Each subsequent single from “Shake Yo Dreads” to last year’s “Get It Sexyy” has been better than the last, projecting the kind of addictive, care-free confidence of someone joyriding a cheating ex’s BMW down the highway (FYI: Sexyy’s rap career was prompted after she made a diss song to a cheating ex “for fun”): talking shit out the windows to whoever might listen.  

A lot of people do listen: Sexyy Red has racked up more than 35 million monthly streams on Spotify and has already marked 2025 with an X-rated collaboration with pop giant Bruno Mars (“Fat, Juicy and Wet”). On this track, she compares her private parts to cocaine, because you should “put it in your nose!” The world’s biggest musical stars, whether that’s Tyler, the Creator, SZA, or Drake (more on him later), consistently come to Sexyy whenever they need their single to be more playful. 

As I get bigger and more viral, there’s going to be more and more people who want to harm me, 100 per cent

And, the fact she followed up her 2023 album Hood’s Hottest Princess the very next year with another critically acclaimed project, In Sexyy We Trust, reflects a need to keep flooding the market with new material. She doesn’t rap in a traditional way, with an often uncomplicated flow carrying an off-the-cuff, unvarnished charisma. This results in half-growled, shit-talking bars. “I just want the people to know though, I’m a nice person too,” Red interjects. “I always pray to God! I’m not no evil spirit; I’m just a carefree spirit in my raps.”  

This defensiveness reflects relentless online criticism of the 26-year-old’s music. The wildest Reddit conspiracy theories suggest she’s really an undercover CIA agent with a mission of corrupting the youth, while an AI-generated photo of Sexyy Red communicating with Martin Luther King is supposed to illustrate just how unrighteous the content of her music is compared to the late civil rights activist. There have also been a lot of below-the-belt insults about her appearance, and hip-hop purists are unable to understand the need for a world with the variety of both Sexyy Red’s giddy turn-up music and also, say, a Mach-Hommy’s more anti-colonial, layered take on rap lyricism. Variety, after all, is the spice to life. 

A lot of this criticism feels more than a little sexist, too. Red is simply continuing the formula of 2005-2008 Gucci Mane, a golden era when this crooning trap Lord released unapologetically ratchet iconic mixtape after mixtape, all centred around glorious inappropriateness and catchy hooks about behaving like a dog. Yet Gucci didn’t get anywhere near the type of criticism Sexyy has received – whether about his appearance or lyrics – despite the music being very similar in its overall intent. 

Male sexual promiscuity is often excused, and even encouraged, in hip-hop culture, so the reactions of men hearing Sexyy rapping, “My pussy so good that’s why I’ve got two baby dads”, is a great test of any contradictions. Historically, there’s also been countless hip-hop songs where male rappers talk about women getting pregnant as a form of entrapment. Yet Sexyy’s “Hood Bitch” might be the first time a female emcee has made it the other way around. 

This represents a bold flip in storytelling. “I want to show the men that we’re equal for real,” she explains. “It’s about reminding them of that sometimes. A lot of my songs are freestyles to be honest; they are about hyping me and my girls up in the moment. My songs are more like pep talks. If I am inspired, I can easily create two or three new songs in a day.”  

From the North Side of St Louis, Missouri, Sexyy tells me there was “no hope” growing up and she did everything from work in Starbucks to selling drugs to make ends meet. Her early influences were Gucci Mane as well as Nicki Minaj (who popped up on a remix to “Pound Town”) and Trina. On Nasty, she once rapped, “Get it from my momma, I don’t give a fuck!”, and Sexyy tells me it was her mom who inspired her the most as a youngster. 

I do have genuine friendships with a few rappers, but I know that most of them wouldn’t hesitate to double-cross me. That’s life

“My momma hustled and never let anyone call her a dummy,” Sexyy reflects. “She taught me a lot. Honestly, she taught me everything I know! Taught me how to cook, wash my ass, and how to do my hair.” Police harassment, she says, was another constant occurrence growing up; something immortalised by early song “Free Smoke” and its grim reflection of: “Ain’t no music playing, but the police swear we’re loud!”. Despite the fact Sexyy Red is now a household name and multi-millionaire, she says the racial profiling hasn’t necessarily stopped. 

“The police in St Louis just shot another Black kid dead the other day. That shit’s so wrong,” she says. “When I go back home, there are usually two outcomes [when I am stopped in traffic]: they either like your music and want to tell you about their kids being fans, or they choose to mess with you even more [now you’re this celebrity]! Sometimes they pick on me or just fuck with me for fun. They like to remind you of where you are. It’s all about reinforcing their position [of power].”  

Looking ahead to the future, Sexyy tells me the plan is to keep innovating her sound and proving people wrong about any supposed artistic limitations. She understands some of the criticism of her work is due to wider fatigue around sex-orientated rap bars dominating the charts, but pledges to keep flipping the script and growing artistically. When I ask if that might involve doing a country album, she laughs: “Why not? I’d like to make songs with Taylor Swift and Beyonce as well.” 

Whatever comes next, she says she’s sure to move cautiously. Collaborator Drake has become a friend, but the way so much of the music industry turned their backs on him amid the ongoing Kendrick Lamar rap feud hinted there are few you can truly trust for loyalty inside the music business.   

“I already know they’re not all my real friends! I don’t trust or know a lot of them from a can of collard greens! This is literally a job. We go to work together and we’re coworkers. I do have genuine friendships with a few rappers though, which is nice, but I know that most of them wouldn’t hesitate to double-cross me. That’s life.”

One thing Sexyy particularly enjoyed was making a cameo appearance with legendary wrestler Shawn Michaels for the WWE last year. She actually got offered a permanent role as a wrestler in WWE, but couldn’t find the time to train properly so settled for a cameo instead. Regardless of what the future holds, she says the wrestling world is a good analogy for how to handle the myriad pressures that come with being a popular recording artist. 

“Rapping and wrestling are pretty much the same,” she explains. “It’s not quite acting, but it’s kind of acting too, right? Because when we go home and take off all our jewels and gold and remove the costumes we wear, we then have to go right back to reality with our families.”

Sexyy Red has been criticised for previously announcing her support for Donald Trump, before later backpedalling and endorsing Democrat nominee Kamala Harris for President instead. It’s a clear no-go area in our conversation, but I do ask her what she would change about America if she suddenly woke up as the new president tomorrow: “I would give all the hungry poor people free food, so they don’t have to steal it no more, because it’s too expensive right now. Food should be free! No one should ever be homeless.”

Taking a second to compose her thoughts, she concludes: “The people at the bottom are my favourite kind of people, period. I like people that wear True Religion jeans, even though they’re [seen as being] too ghetto. I’ve got like 600 pairs! I represent the people with no airs and graces.” 

Bruno Mars and Sexyy Red’s “Fat Juicy & Wet” is out now and can be streamed here.