Alyssa Michelle Stephens professionally known as Latto or Big Latto (formerly known as Mulatto), is an American rapper. She first appeared on American rapper Jermaine Dupri’s reality television series The Rap Game in 2016, where she was known as Miss Mulatto and won the show’s first season, but she rejected the record deal offered as a result of winning the show.
After releasing her 2019 single “Bitch from da Souf”, Latto signed with RCA Records. The song entered the Billboard Hot 100 in August 2020, peaking at number 95. Latto’s mainstream breakthrough came with the release of “Big Energy”, the lead single from her second studio album 777 (2022). Latto’s highest-charting single to date, the song peaked at number three on the Billboard Hot 100.
She was a part of the XXL Freshman Class in 2020. She was named MTV Global’s Push Artist of the Month in February 2021, and won the BET Award for Best New Artist in 2022.” Big Energy” won Song of the Year, and 777 was nominated for Hip Hop Album of the Year at the 2022 BET Hip Hop Awards.
Are Mulatto Rapper and Latto The Same Person?
Yes. Mulatto Rapper and Latto are the same people. She used Mulatto when she was a coming-of-age rapper but later changed it to Latto when she became an independent artist.
Why Did Mulatto Change Her Name?
In a new Billboard interview, Latto talks about her decision to change her name and about the reasons it took so long to do so:
Mulatto was a negative term that I was trying to make positive. We’re gonna start positive, and I feel like that’s gonna bring that energy my way. I feel like, in a way, that could’ve been holding me back, and I don’t want to attach that to myself anymore…
When you got labels, management, PR, investors, social media, lawyers, and all this extra stuff involved, it’s not like an overnight process. There were definitely a lot of meetings and people getting cussed out. It’s definitely not an overnight process. Now, it’s a boulder off my shoulders.
Latto also talks about her name change on her new single “The Biggest”: “Don’t want no sympathy, just know I changed/ I’ll be damned if the name the reason I don’t make it/ It contradicted what I stand for/ The backlash ain’t what I planned for/ Now I know better, so I’m moving better/ Ten toes to the damn floor.”