It’s been a relatively quiet year for Saweetie. For a moment, it looked as though she had squandered the momentum from her dual 2022 Grammy nominations and the success of her Doja Cat-assisted “Best Friend.” Outside of the insipid H.E.R.-featuring “Closer” and a featured turn on Muni Long’s “Baby Boo,” Saweetie has been fairly absent from this year’s music scene. Seeing how the blogs weaponized one-sided stories about her romances with a certain rapper or two against her, it’s understandable why Saweetie needed a reprieve from the circus of it all.

Enter The Single Life. To be clear, Saweetie’s career has never depended on the critical or commercial success of a full body of work. The Single Life is Saweetie’s fourth EP in almost as many years, but most people couldn’t name one of those EPs. Hit play on “Tap In” or “My Type,” however, and you’ll get the function moving. It’s been half a decade since Saweetie first blew with “Icy Girl,” and we’ve still yet to hear a proper debut album from the “Back to the Streets” rapper. The Single Life is yet another project Saweetie has dropped on the long winding road to her debut album, and it’s the most irredeemable one yet.

Much of the promotion around The Single Life centered on “Don’t Say Nothin’.” Intended as a blistering retort to the blogs and rumors that have preyed on her name for the past few months, “Don’t Say Nothin’” is a whole lot of nothing. The hook, in which Saweetie essentially slows down Monaleo’s “We Not Humping” flow, is the only point of interest in the song. It’s as if Saweetie and her collaborators nailed down the hook, and, at the last minute, remembered that they had to make the rest of the song. “That's what I get for kissin' on these frogs / He got mad and told my business to the blogs,” she raps. Elementary rhyme scheme aside, the line lacks the bite to warrant the aggression that colors most of Saweetie’s delivery. You can’t sound menacing if what you’re saying has no edge to it.

Across The Single Life, Saweetie tries on a host of different flows and tones. “Bo$$ Chick” finds her boosting the bass in her voice which makes for an incredibly awkward end result. On “Memorable,” she employs a Jack Harlow-esque flow for a song that is unironically the most forgettable track on the entire project. Saweetie truly does attempt to move outside of her comfort zone on The Single Life, but the new flows often sound uncomfortable in her mouth. The EP’s biggest misfire, however, is “P.U.S.S.Y.” Built around a sample of Mtume’s “Juicy Fruit,” “P.U.S.S.Y.” is a sloppy amalgamation of banal “pussy power” clips seemingly sourced from mid-2010s Tumblr shitposts. Saweetie’s claim to fame is her ability to flip classic hip-hop songs and samples into bouncy party tracks. It’s almost hilarious that the one song on The Single Life that reprises that formula is such a travesty.

It’s not all doom and gloom. “Handle My Truth” arises as the album’s sole standout. Here, Saweetie finally sounds locked in. Not only is she riding the beat well, but she’s also rapping about stuff of substance: “Are we keepin' the score? My bag bigger, will you feel insecure? / You respectin' my space, I move slow / Why you rushin' my pace? I move fast, are you slowin' me down?” There’s also that earworm of a hook that ties everything together. “Handle My Truth” might be a different sound and style from Saweetie’s defining hits, but it’s a more promising sonic blueprint than any of those songs. In the event that “Handle My Truth” does not materialize into a substantial hit, Saweetie need not worry; all she needs is that one undeniable hit for the pendulum to swing back in her favor. At this point, however, if she has any hopes of crafting a solid album, she’ll need to go back to the drawing board and focus on what made listeners gravitate to her in the first place. The Single Life is pretty awful, but it’s not a death sentence.

Key Tracks: “Handle My Truth”

Score: 35