Many of you may know JT from the Miami rap duo City Girls and their 2018 single ‘Act Up’ which took social media and then the world by storm, hitting number 1 on the US Rhythmic Billboard charts and has since achieved triple platinum status. Since then, City Girls have been a household name all the way up until 2023 when JT released her solo single ‘No Bars’ which cemented her name as a solo act and proved her ability to dominate the female rap genre on her own. From 2023 until now, JT has refused to slow down, her music becoming a soundtrack to people’s lives with hits such as ‘Sideways’, ‘Okay’ and ‘Ran Out’ as well as some major collaborations with artists such as Doechii, Jeezy, Gucci Mane, Pinkpantheress and Zara Larsson to name a few.
So on Friday May 22nd at Camden’s Roundhouse, JT invited us to ‘Club Cheetah’, her first time solo headlining a show in London and it felt like the whole city came out to greet her (along with a surprise guest). JT stormed the stage, announcing her arrival with her viral song ‘JT Coming’ sending the crowd into a frenzy as she came out to near deafening screams from the audience.
Throughout the night, we got to hear all of our favourite songs from her solo debut mixtape City Cinderella with fans being brought on stage, keeping up on the mic with even the most recent songs. Halfway through the night, Little Simz makes an appearance to perform their collaboration ‘Game On’ from Simz’ most recent EP Sugar Girl’which only released at the beginning of May but even then, you can see devoted fans rapping every word right back to her.
It might have become obvious by this point the connection between JT and her fans. The love between the two (she lovingly calls her fans Juvies) was tangible, organically grown through her outspoken love of and allyship with the LGBTQ+ community. This includes people in her own team such as her DJ, Kai the Black Angel, who was just as much of the show as she was, keeping the crowd hyped from the moment they stepped onto the stage, offering the mic to the crowd as they hit us with a phenomenal DJ set with artists like CeeChyna and Natalie Nunn, riling the crowd up even further.
You may be wondering why the concert was called ‘Club Cheetah’, well it was announced at this show that JT’s debut album will be called Club Cheetah. We weren’t lucky enough to get a release date yet but we did get a couple of previews of unreleased songs ‘Vixen’ and ‘Marie Antoinette’. The show did exactly what it was meant to do, transport us to a club night in her native Miami (with help from the UK’s recent heatwave) and to let the rest of the world know that JT (is) coming.
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Words: Cleopatra Bailey
Photographer: Abigail Morris