City Girls Discuss New Music and JT’s Prison Stint for Billboard

If there was any doubt that the City Girls were here to stay, that notion completely went out the window when the Miami duo graced the cover of Billboard in a stunning shoot and cover story; their first since JT was released from federal prison in October.

JT, whose real name is Jatavia Johnson, is currently completing the last months of her sentence in a halfway house. In 2018, she turned herself in to begin a sentence stemming from an aggravated identity theft charge from 2017. She spoke candidly about staying out of trouble in an effort to stay free.

“The City Girls are not subtle — only reason I’m subtle right now is ’cause I can’t do nothing!” She revealed. “I’m just trying to stay out of jail. But if a bitch try me…!”

However, when it came to speaking candidly about her life in prison, the 27-year-old shied away from the gritty details of life behind bars.

“Not to say I don’t ever want to talk about it. But I think that I need to talk about it when I’m helping other people, not so much like ‘me, me, me,” she said.

The young women, who have been inseparable since middle school, began their journey in rap together in the summer of 2017, when JT, who was already dabbling in rap recruited Miami to record a diss record about neighborhood girls talking mess. They teamed up with up and coming producer Major Nine, to remix Khia’s raunchy “My Neck, My Back.” The song immediately took off, becoming a staple in clubs throughout Florida. Before long, the track caught the attention of Pee Thomas of QC and Coach K.

“The first thing I asked them was, ‘So, where y’all from?’” Coach laughed as he reminisced about his initial encounter with his now QC stars… “And both of them were like, ‘We from the city!’ Like, together, with attitude!”

The pair is gearing up to release their third project in April, and while they may have enough music in the stash to compile an entire album, they want to be sure that their return to the stage as a duo is flawless.

“I just wanna get back to … not how we was, but how we need to be,” JT said, wanting to continue recording as much as possible for the upcoming release.

Elsewhere in the interview, Yung Miami took a moment to describe once and for all what it means to be a City Girl.

”Being a City Girl is just being a boss-ass bitch. You don’t have to feel nobody but yourself,” she said.