By Mankaprr Conteh
In a move as strategic for her as it is exciting for us, Flo Milli only gave hours notice that a remix of her first song to hit the Hot 100, “Never Lose Me,” would hit streaming with features from two of the biggest women in music – SZA and Cardi B. Though SZA and Flo have teased a remix since the top of the year, Cardi B came as a surprise (“POP UP GUESS WHO B✰TCH,” Flo wrote on Instagram under a video of the two of them together, both announcement and homage to Cardi). Debuting the remix as a part of her third LP, Fine Ho, Stay – released today – rather than a single ahead of time smartly draws fans into the whole body of work and ensured the viral hit didn’t oversaturate us before the album dropped.
Flo was headlining Rolling Stone’s Future of Music showcase at SXSW as her album was released, telling the crowd “This night is so special to me.” She eventually hopped off the stage to take photos with them as the new remix blared through ACL Live at the Moody Theater in Austin. Fine Ho, Stay is the last installment of a series kicked off by her debut, Ho, Why is You Here?, and while it’s early, there’s a case to be made for this one being her best. At a quick 33 minutes, it’s relentless, with Flo fitting snugly in a range of pockets with beats and flows that are timely and trendy but not vapidly so.
The new “Never Lose Me” is particularly thrilling because it brings together three women in eras that challenge any notion of their success being serendipitous. SZA just solidified this with SOS, which came a long five years after her groundbreaking debut Ctrl, and made her the most Grammy-nominated person at this year’s ceremony. Cardi B has promised herself her sophomore effort will finally arrive this year too, after building a musical empire and a lot of anxiety since her 2017 debut Invasion of Privacy, which made her the first woman to win a Grammy for Best Rap Album. She’s dropped a fiery single today, too.
Flo Milli broke out in 2019, emerging in a ravenous culture of streaming and social media that doesn’t really afford her the luxury of long waits between albums. She hasn’t crystallized an iconic body of work like Ctrl or Invasion. What “Never Lose Me,” and the electricity of this remix do crystalize, however, is that her great songs like “Beef FloMix,” “In the Party,” and “Conceited” before it are building into a pattern of hit-making that puts the hippest people in a chokehold. SZA and Cardi have enthusiastically supported Flo and the song; their fervor is obvious from their takes on it.
Flo’s girlish melodies on “Never Lose Me” are so bite-worthy that they did just that, with just slight and quirky deviations. SZA gives nice-nasty a whole new meaning when she coos, “From the ‘burbs, actin’ bougie / From the ‘burb but I suck it like Suki / From the ‘burb but I buss it like Juvie / Throw it back while he talkin’ me through it.” Cardi B brings the combative energy of her latest singles “Like What (Freestyle)” and “Enough (Miami)” to flip Flo’s line “Never had a bitch like me in your life” to “That bitch could never be me in her life,” then raps like she was supposed to have tapped out eight bars earlier but couldn’t help herself. The “Never Lose Me” remix is one indication the rap girls won this New Music Friday, but it’s also been a cross-gender anthem for feeling yourself (and on someone else) with prior versions with Bryson Tiller and Lil Yachty. Flo actually commandeered the ethereal, Uzi-esque beat from Babyface Ray and 42 Dugg’s “Ron Artest,” turning their groggy, masculine take on its head.
Especially since her second LP, You Still Here, Ho?, Flo Milli has dedicated herself to the aesthetic of VH1’s mid-2000s reality shows like Flavor of Love, and much like a reality star, she broke out as an unknown with a raw edge, and with every song, searing look, and social media clip, has worked her way from being a novelty to a fixture in rap. “I think I’m a bad bitch, and there’s nothing you could say that’s going to make me think otherwise,” she told Rolling Stone last fall. She’s exactly who she thinks she is.
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