Yung Miami has released her debut solo album, Watch This, a 20-track statement that she says was built to answer two years of doubt.
One of its most personal songs, “Dear JT,” addresses the City Girls split directly. JT heard it for the first time along with everyone else.
Asked whether she had shared the song with her former groupmate before it went on the album, she answered simply, “No.” She also confirmed she had not heard from JT since its release.
The record is framed as a letter to a childhood friend, and Yung Miami said she cried while making it. “We started here together,” she said, adding that she is “never going to forget what we started.”
The split and the public reaction to it defined the last two years of her life, and she chose to confront it on her first album rather than leave it out. “Let me address it now because this is what’s on my heart,” she explained.
She admitted to some nerves before including it. “I didn’t want it to get taken out of context,” she said. On the question of a reunion, she repeatedly answered “inshallah,” saying the outcome rests on God’s timing. If the phone call happened, I’mma answer it and we’ll go from there,” she added.
The album’s size was a deliberate challenge. When she announced 20 songs at pre-order, she recalled, many doubted she could hold listeners for that long, and even her managers questioned it.
“I think so many people doubted me and told me that I couldn’t do it,” she said. “I want to push myself. I want to challenge myself. But I took my time.”
That process included scrapping an earlier version. The project was once finished under the title Yams, and she said the name felt uninspired.
“This just feels so lazy,” she said. Even after her hit “Spend That,” she asked her label to push back a planned April release so she could return to the studio, because the music did not feel personal enough.
“It’s not intentional,” she said of that earlier material. “These people looking for a reason to count me out and say I can’t do it.”
The road to a deal was not easy either. She said she took meetings with many labels and was turned away, describing how “so many doors was closed.”
She credited a black woman, Danielle, with believing in the music from the first listen, and thanked Generation Now for standing by her.
Once “Spend That” took off, the attitude changed. “It was a lot of phone calls being made,” she said. She now works as a partner with Uptown and said being hands-on has shown her how hard securing features can be.
Yung Miami also revealed she turned down an appearance on Button’s podcast. She described him as “one of the ones that was just very outspoken and just mean,” though she left room for a future talk.
“I will be willing to sit down and have that conversation. I just don’t know if it’s now,” she said, explaining that for this album run, “I want to go where I’m loved at.”
She also confirmed that a Drake remix of “Spend That” has not happened, saying he left her message unanswered. “I love Drake,” she said. “Just say no. I’m good with the no.”
Watch This features Bryson Tiller, Summer Walker and Travis Scott, who joined “Just Might Go” after a spontaneous studio session in Los Angeles. A cleared Jeezy vocal appears on “2008.”
Bryson Tiller’s “For Old Time Sake” is currently her favorite track, she said, because he kept his word without any chasing.
