One thing about Yung Miami—she’s going to get to the money.
One-half of the rap duo City Girls (Jatavia ‘JT’ Johnson is the other founding member), she’s made a career of empowering women to lean into sex positivity and financial abundance. Although the City Girls’ music is meant to purely entertain, this speaks to a larger conversation around the racial wealth gap and how Black women fit in.
2019 data showed the median wealth for single women was $36,000, while the median wealth for single men was $43,800. What’s more, single Black men’s median wealth was $10,100, compared to Single Black women’s median wealth of $1,700.
Yung Miami, also fondly referred to by her birth name Caresha by way of her friend Saucy Santana, has proven that data isn’t something she takes lightly.
Her savvy was recently praised on social media after the wildly successful launch of her new podcast Caresha, Please on Revolt TV, a network owned by her rumored beau, Sean Combs. The premiere featured a conversation between the two that broached the topic of their previously speculated about relationship.
As one Twitter user pointed out, this was a masterful move.
“Caresha is a smart business woman, took her jokes and turned all of em into bags.”
Since coming into public awareness in 2017, the City Girls’ rap lyrics have been filled with gems. Now, with this latest move, we’re seeing they’ve been walking their talk and there are a few things we can learn.
01
Lean into the power of authenticity
A part of Caresha’s appeal is her refreshing, down-to-earth presence despite her glamorous aesthetic.
From the hilariously relatable Instagram Live conversations with her friends to candid tweets about her daily life, Caresha always keeps it real. It’s this candor that has helped amass her more than 6 million followers across her social media platforms. Over time, her and JT’s personalities gained the attention of Hollywood, leading to an executive producer title on Issa Rae’s Rap Sh*t, an HBO series about two young women from Miami who become rappers.
One Twitter user
points out the value of self-acceptance. “Caresha, Please was a refreshing watch. Moral of it, be yo mf’n self and the right people and opportunities will come. Take heed to it girlies.”
02
Don’t fear hard work
The City Girls’ rise was a fast one, with hit singles and massive popularity showered on JT and Caresha almost immediately after their debut in 2017. The rap duo was touted by fans and critics alike as rap’s next superstars, but that all came to a halt when in 2018 it was announced that JT was going to be imprisoned for crimes committed pre-music. The sentence was nearly two years.
This meant Caresha would have to hold down the fort alone. What’s more, around the same time she’d also shared with the public that she was pregnant with her second child.
“I just keep doing everything we were doing before she left,” she said in a July 2018 Rolling Stone
interview.
Despite her fears, she powered through, fulfilled all of the obligations the duo had lined up prior to JT’s incarceration and secured more opportunities, all while pregnant.
03
Let your code of ethics be your guide
“It’s about women empowerment—City Girls don’t take no ish from a man,” Yung Miami said in a
Rolling Stone interview.
Growing up, the artist
shared that her mother often spoke on the value of self-confidence, and informed her of how the world would try to convince her to devalue herself as she got older.
“My mom always told me ‘Don’t talk to a man who can’t do nothing for you. If you talkin’ to a man, make him do something for you.’ I don’t wanna talk to a broke boy. Period. That’s why it sounds like we’ve been doing it for a while. We just talkin.”
It’s these lessons that helped shaped not only the lyrics of her songs, but the way she moves in her career.
04
Recognize the importance of humility
At one point or another, many bosses have to be chastised for a choice they’ve made, particularly if it has affected their bottom line. This is a tough lesson the artist learned when in 2019 she found herself offering a heartfelt apology for racist and homophobic remarks she’d made in the past.
“Boy Oh Boy. If I Ever See Any Gay S–t In My Son Imma Beat That Bo So Baddd,” the rising music star wrote in 2013 when she was a teen. Twitter users resurfaced the tweet, calling the star to the carpet for the harmful rhetoric.
Not long after, another Tweet about Haitian people’s skin tone alarmed users off and sparked a conversation around her having racist ideals. Understandably, people were outraged and the star had to take ownership. She did so in a written apology:
“To everyone I may have offended I apologize. We are all one we are all equal I LOVE EVERYBODY Let’s move on I’m older & wiser now let’s focus on the future and leave the past behind us! Thank you.”
05
Listen to your audience no matter what
After a series of online conversations with close friend and fellow artist Saucy Santana where he called her by her birth name Caresha, The City Girls founder quickly realized that her fans had a preference over her onstage moniker.
“I been feeling violated every time a bitch see me in public they keep yelling ‘Caresha,’” Yung Miami said in an April 2021 tweet. “STOP DOING THAT I DON’T LIKE THAT!”
Not long after, she
took to Instagram, to explain that the usage of her real name by fans and followers feels invasive since her family often refers to her that way.
“In the back of my head I got to realize that everybody knows my name, but there’s a time and a place for that,” she said.
Despite the early discomfort, the name stuck, with many fans explaining that “Caresha” felt more personal to them.
“You want us to call you Yung Miami? We thought we were closer than that ‘Resh,” one Twitter user
wrote.
After some time, the artist clearly warmed to the idea and not updated her social media handles to include her government name, but also named her podcast ‘Caresha, please’ as well.
06
Allow yourself to believe in your greatness
In a Rolling Stone
interview, Yung Miami shared how challenging it was for others to see the vision for their rap careers: “I ain’t gonna lie, we got cussed out so bad. We would go in the studio and do, like, one song. It would take us a day to do one song. It would take us six hours to do one verse.”
Despite the early challenges, the ‘Take Yo Man’ rapper said she’d practiced and took the craft seriously because she saw great potential in herself, even from the beginning.
“When the mixtape dropped, that’s when I really started enjoying music,” she says, sharing in a 2019 interview that the positive reaction from fans to the City Girls’ first real project gave her hope for the future of their careers.
07
Enjoy the process
A key aspect of Yung Miami’s appeal is her willingness to not take herself too seriously despite massive success achieved.
If it’s a
comical conversation about anything under the sun via Instagram,
” rel=”noopener” target=”_blank”>or a fun song filled with creative lyrics, this star knows how to enjoy the ride.
We could all learn to be the same way.
