Rapper and entrepreneur Saweetie will join students, aspiring musicians, and creatives to give a talk at Harvard University on Monday, November 11th at 5:30 pm as part of No Label’s ongoing Uncut series.

Diamonté Harper, better known as “Saweetie,” is a rapper, singer-songwriter, and boss. Her debut single “ICY GRL” has accrued more than 87 million views on YouTube, landed her a record deal with Warner Records, and earned RIAA platinum certification. Since then, she has released two EPs, High Maintenance and ICY. Her latest EP features her second platinum-certified hit “My Type,” which has received over 468 million streams across platforms.

However, Saweetie is not just a talented rapper. An alum of USC with a degree in communications and business, Saweetie has also gained incredible experience in the world of entrepreneurship. Her business acumen has led her to develop her own brand and imprint Icy. According to her, Icy represents “hustling and having the mentality of getting what you said you was gon’ get.”

In this conversation, Saweetie will focus on her journey beyond just her music. The talk will break down gender expectations in hip-hop, explore Saweetie’s rapid rise to fame, and show her entrepreneurial vision for the future. The conversation will be moderated by Warner Records Senior VP of A&R Eesean Bolden, who signed her to the label in 2017 through a partnership with Artistry Records.

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Returning to where it all started, Boston-bred rapper Cousin Stizz will come to Harvard’s Smith Campus Center alongside manager Tim Larew in the next edition of our Uncut speaker series. Suffolk County, Stizz’s first mixtape, inspired a new generation of sound for Boston and has received over 15 million streams on SoundCloud since its 2015 release. Since then, he has signed with RCA Records and released several projects, of which include One Night Only, All Adds Up, and Cold Times. The first rapper named Artist of the Year by the Boston Music Awards, Stizz has and will continue to alter industry perceptions about the city he calls home.

Larew, born in Chicago and raised in Connecticut, dove into the music business scene while attending Boston University back in 2010. He has since managed several Boston based artists – including Cam Meekins and Michael Christmas - before making the move to LA to expand his reach. His career began with several features in the Boston Globe for his #12for12 program, where he brought the globally recognized Boiler Room to Boston.

The two will be the centerpieces of a discussion by and for Boston music talent.

Terrace Martin, a Grammy-nominated producer and musician from Crenshaw, California, has been quietly working behind the scenes with the industry’s biggest names over the last decade. The son of musicians, Martin developed a life-long love of music and an ability to combine the worlds of jazz, funk, soul and hip-hop. His first solo album 3ChordFold arrived in 2013 with appearances from Kendrick Lamar, Snoop Dogg, Ab-Soul, Robert Glasper and others. His 2016 release Velvet Portraits earned a Grammy-nomination for “Best R&B Album.” To date, he’s produced for the likes of Herbie Hancock, Snoop Dogg, and Travis Scott, and is a frequent collaborator for Kendrick Lamar having produced on good kid, m.A.A.d city and To Pimp a Butterfly. 

His evening at Harvard, which is free and open to the public, is a collaboration between the Office for the Arts at Harvard and No Label, a creative collective of college students whose broad mission is to create a community that sees beyond ascriptive labels.