Our August Of The ESSENCE Digital Cover Star JT is more than just a self-titled “City Cinderella” from Miami. The rapper is rising to the top as one of the most referenced beauty icons in pop culture. Known for her 40-inch black wigs, costume makeup, and decorated nails, she delivers defiant experimentation, hand-in-hand with her boyfriend Lil Uzi Vert, flipping traditional high glam on its head.
Often criticized, then copied (think: her overarched brows and drag makeup at MAC’s 30th Viva Glam Ball), JT doesn’t shy away from stepping outside of the box Black women are confined to—and defending her right to do so.
“Being like everyone else will not get you [anywhere],” she says on the “Beauty Interrupted” panel at the 2024 ESSENCE Festival of Culture. “Just do you.” We’ve seen her take her own advice, from a silver wig with blue lip liner one moment, to a matte pink lip and cheetah print hair to match her yellow French tips in another.
She’s transformed into a Marni doll with a blonde-haired coat (cue: Doja Cat’s monstrous wigs at Coachella) paired with metallic gold lipstick and a swooped updo; a powdered-eye princess on the front row of the Diesel show in Milan; and, channeled her Alter Ego with blood red makeup and bleached brows in a music video with Doechii.
During her latest tour, the femcee rocked graphic eye makeup: streamer-like eyelashes, rhinestoned lids, and body glitter, showing off her ethereal beauty. And even more recently? She posed next to bae with glowing skin and glitter-speckled inner eye corners.
In honor of her birthday today, below, check out some of our favorite JT beauty moments.