Sexyy Red: 5 Things to Know About Female Rapper Who Drake Called His ‘Rightful Wife’

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• Sexyy Red (b. Janae Wherry) is an American rapper.
• Her breakthrough song is 2023’s “Pound Town,” which featured Nicki Minaj on the remix.
• In July 2023, Drake posted photos of him cuddling Red, who he called his “Rightful Wife.”

Rihanna who? Drake seemed ready to walk down the aisle with Sexyy Red following his and 21 Savage’s show on July 18. Following the second of four nights at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center, Drake, 36, posted a shot of him kissing Red’s cheek while cozying up beside her. “Just met my rightful wife,” Drake captioned the picture of him and the 25-year-old. Drake also shared a photo taken of him getting close to Red during Tuesday’s show.

Drake x Sexyy Red link up ???? https://t.co/52WCdDsvQr pic.twitter.com/AtZPr3vLCY

— HipHopDX (@HipHopDX) July 19, 2023

What is it about Red – who secured her first Billboard charting song with 2023’s “Pound Town” – that left Drake to forget about Rihanna, Sophie Brussaux, and every other woman he’s dated? “I be myself,” Red told Complex in an in-depth interview. “I think that’s what it is. Because there’s not nobody like yourself. So if you be yourself, you’re going to stand out anyway because you’re just being true to who you is. I’ve always been myself. I never cared. When people do regular sh-t, I don’t want to be regular. I want to stand out. I want to do something that you all wouldn’t do.”

Get to know more about Red.

Sexyy Red Is A Rapper.

“The reason I started rapping is because my boyfriend was cheating on me with a lame-ass bitch, so I made a song about it. And I made a diss song about him and the girl and her friends,” she told Complex in May 2023. “And then I showed my boyfriend the song, and he was like, “Dang, you straight know how to rap. You straight snap.” And I’m sitting here talking stuff about him, but he was liking it.”

Red’s boyfriend at the time brought all his friends around to listen to her rap, which encouraged her to record the song. From there, all her friends asked for a copy, and it started to circulate around St. Louis. People hearing her music booked her to play house parties, further encouraging her to pursue her music. In 2021, she released her first mixtape, Ghetto Superstar. In 2023, she released Hood Hottest Princess, which contained “Pound Town.” (Nicki Minaj would later jump on the remix.)

Some of her early success also included a reimagination of Three 6 Mafia’s “Slob on My Nob,” a song about oral sex. Sexyy’s “Slob On My Ckat” puts the focus on women, saying that she wanted equality when it comes to the bedroom.

“I’ll be like, ‘It’s bad. It’s ratchet.’ That’s how I describe [my music],” she told Complex. “I be like, ‘It’s bad. Don’t listen to it around no kids.’ But the kids f–king with me, too. They f–k with me hard.”

Where Is Sexyy Red From?

Sexyy Redd was born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri. “I’m really a product of my environment,” she told Complex in early 2023. “They be saying, ‘Oh, she’s ghetto. She dusty.’ But I’m really a product of my environment. If they go where I’m from, I’m clean out there. They think I’m dusty? Oh, this is clean. So it’s just real.”

“I like St. Louis rappers,” she added. “I listen to the rappers. In my city, when you go to the parties, they playing all the St. Louis rappers. Everybody from St. Louis listen to St. Louis people. The world hasn’t heard it, but I be like, “Dang, they’re actually tight.” But I’m the one that everybody is seeing from the city. But we got a lot of rappers that I like their music.”

Red also told Complex her name comes from how she used to wear red hair and red clothing all the time in middle school. Her cameraman suggested she adopt the “Sexyy” moniker.

She’s A Mom.

While speaking with The Face, Sexyy Red revealed that she has a son.

Also during the chat, Red revealed that she’s always been one to live her own life. By age 15, she was hitting up local strip clubs. “My older sister gave me her ID and we just used to be outside every night for no reason,” she said. ​”It’d be funny because I’d come back to school and everybody just was on some lame stuff. But me, I was already going to the club, going out of town for the weekend. Even on school nights, my mom couldn’t keep me in the house. I used to be coming in at three, four o’clock in the morning on a school night, and wake up and go right to school.”

She Isn’t Afraid To Get Funny.

Many of the publications that interviewed Red after “Pound Town” blew up made reference to the rapper’s sense of humor. “Yeah, I’m funny,” Red told Complex. “And I’m not doing it just to make them laugh. I’m really just being me, and then they’re laughing. I’m not always trying to be funny, but they be laughing when I talk and stuff. I’ll be saying, “Y’all reacted off that?” Even when I said, “My coochie’s pink, my booty-hole brown.” I just was rapping, and then they started laughing when I said it. I even kept the laugh in the song.”

“I say some sh-t, and I won’t even think I’m being funny. I was being for real,” she told The Face. “I be making myself laugh, I ain’t gonna lie.”

Red is also interested in astrological life paths, researching cryptids (“Mermaids, bigfoots, I look up everything on YouTube,” she told Complex), and ghosts.

She’s Friends With Summer Walker.

“Me and her met on Instagram first, and she was f–king with my music,” Red said to Complex about her friendship with Summer Walker. “I used to see her posting my songs all the time and she thought I was funny, too. … So she started following me. Then she invited me to her slumber party that she had with all her friends and stuff. And then we just kept hanging out after then. Then we did a song later down the line. Now if one of our kids have a birthday party, we’d be like, okay, come to the party or sh-t like that. Now we’re cool.”

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