Atlanta-based rapper/singer Alyssa Stephens burst onto the music scene as Miss Mulatto when she won the first season of the reality series
The Rap Game in 2016. Despite turning down her prize - a recording contract with host Jermaine Dupri's renowned label So So Def Recordings - with the aim of being an independent artist, she found a home at RCA Records and issued her debut album,
Queen Of Da Souf, in 2020. The following year, she achieved her commercial breakthrough under the new stage name Latto with the Top 10 single "
Big Energy."
Latto is the daughter of a Black father and a white mother. She adopted her original stage name, Miss Mulatto, as a defiant jab at the bullies who made fun of her light skin when she was growing up. The term mulatto originated as a racial classification describing people of mixed Sub-Saharan African and European ancestry in the early days of transatlantic slave trading in the United States. While it's now considered a derogatory label, the rapper reasoned she was reclaiming a negative word and making it positive. But when fans suggested she was glorifying her biracial heritage, she took the criticism to heart and rebranded herself as Latto.
The name Latto is also a riff on the word "lottery," said the rapper, who hoped the new moniker would bring her good fortune.
Shortly after her appearance on The Rap Game, Latto was involved in a feud with Young Lyric, one of her competitors, which led to the rappers trading diss tracks. On "Back 2 Back," Young Lyric tore into Latto, claiming she was selling sex instead of music, while Latto clapped back with "Response Diss" (from her 2017 mixtape, Latto Let 'Em Know), calling Lyric a crybaby and making fun of her lisp.
Teaming up with other artists brought Latto greater recognition. She recruited fellow Atlanta rapper Gucci Mane for her million-selling sophomore single, "Muwop." She also rapped on former BTS star Jungkook's 2023 single "
Seven" - which brought her to #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for the first time - and invited Cardi B and Mariah Carey to join her on hit remixes of "
Put It On Da Floor" and "Big Energy," respectively.
In 2023,
Latto told Harper's Bazaar magazine that her dad, Shayne Stephens, was a hip-hop head who was always playing rap music around the house. He was also into classic cars, which he would rent out for music videos. Stephens brought his young daughter along for many of the shoots, including Ciara's "
Goodies." Growing up on the fringes of the music scene solidified her dream of becoming a rapper.
Even as an elementary schooler, Latto was a savvy moneymaker. According to the rapper, she earned upwards of $50 a day selling candy and, when she got to high school, she made $10,000 a night throwing parties in Clayton County, a southside suburb of Atlanta where she was raised.
A case of mistaken identity led to Latto getting arrested in 2019. The rapper was getting ready to board a flight from Atlanta to the Dominican Republic when she was apprehended by two officers who said she was under arrest for theft. After a humiliating strip search and a long night in jail, she learned the truth: A sex worker who happened to resemble her had robbed a client of his belongings, and someone who'd seen Latto on The Rap Game claimed it was her after seeing a photo of the thief. Upon her release, she went straight to the studio and poured out her frustrations on the track "F--k Rice Street."
Latto had another run-in with the law when she was arrested at Los Angeles International Airport for being found in possession of a loaded gun in 2021. She referenced the incident on a remix of Mello Buckzz's "Boom, Pt. 2," where she raps, "I got locked up in the airport, goddamn forgot the gun."
In 2022, Latto told Billboard she hoped to work with Nicki Minaj someday. Just a few months later, her name made headlines alongside Minaj's - but not in the way she'd hoped. Minaj was offended by the news that her song "
Super Freaky Girl" was being moved from the rap category to the pop category on the 2023 Grammy ballot and bristled at Latto's pop-leaning "Big Energy" being considered as a rap song. The rappers went to war against each other on Twitter, lobbing insults and drawing other artists into the fray. To add insult to injury, Minaj's song didn't end up being nominated after all, while Latto secured the nomination for Best Melodic Rap Performance.
By the time she was 10 years old, she knew she wanted to be a rapper. Before that, her dad was training her to be a junior drag racer.
She made her acting debut on the TV series
Grown-ish, playing a wine sales representative on four episodes of the show's sixth and final season. In a
2023 Cosmo interview, the rapper explained that she wanted to add acting to her resumé because she doesn't see herself doing music forever.
