“Got here to LSU my freshman yr and we made historical past,” is not just a line in Flau’jae Johnson’s 13-song mixtape “four My Enthusiasts.” It is usually a correct description of the rapper and LSU basketball participant’s existence since she received the 2023 NCAA championship as LSU’s All-American guard. Since the ones lyrics was a fact, the 5-foot-10 multihyphenate’s existence has been on a quick observe. She’s been featured in a Tremendous Bowl business, secured more than one offers with sports activities and way of life manufacturers, and signed a multimillion-dollar care for Jay-Z’s label, Roc Country.
This previous March Insanity, Johnson made headlines when the LSU Tigers misplaced to the Iowa Hawkeyes within the semifinals and the group spoke truthfully about their stories with the media. Her give a boost to of Angel Reese, a fellow Black girl Tiger, used to be poignant. However regardless of the emotional second, Johnson believes all of the protection of ladies’s sports activities is a great factor. “LSU, Catilin Clark, South Carolina — those are nice storylines and individuals are getting extra to peer, that is simplest going to develop,” she says.
Johnson, 20, began taking part in basketball once she may stroll, and she or he discovered she may take her talents some distance when she saved beating boys at the fundamental faculty courts. Kia Brooks, the athlete’s mom and supervisor, put her in Novice Athletic Union Circuit, or aggressive, basketball. It used to be right here that her love of the game grew. The Savannah, GA, local’s intense center of attention led her to attain over 1,900 issues during her highschool profession, and she or he was the all time main scorer for her faculty’s group sooner than discovering her position at the LSU girls’s group, the place she averaged 14.nine issues in line with sport right through the ’23-24 season and 11 right through the ’22-23 season.
Like maximum nice athletes, Johnson is the primary one at the court docket and the remaining one off. Emerging at Five a.m. each morning sooner than magnificence, the big name participant loves to take a minimum of 500 photographs an afternoon to handle her observe. However she has more than one commitments, and her strict time table comes to hours within the health club, conditioning and taking part in; studio classes spent recording new tracks and mixtapes; and time to unwind and connect to circle of relatives. “It is about being disciplined in my time table,” she says.
Now, sooner than you get started pondering Johnson’s song profession took off on account of her NCAA repute, assume once more. The multitalented entrepreneur has been acting since she used to be 7. Because the daughter of Jason Johnson — often referred to as Camoflauge, a well-liked Georgia-area rapper who used to be tragically killed sooner than her start — Johnson has all the time used rapping with the intention to proceed her father’s legacy.
“I attempt to assist other people undergo what they’re going via,” the rapper stocks of the which means in the back of her lyrics. “It is all the time one thing I am going via, too. I simply know the way to bottle it up and put it in song. It is like treatment.”
“I see it, recognize it, however I do not let it get to me.”
Johnson used to be simplest 12 when she gave the impression on Lifetime’s “The Rap Recreation,” a tv sequence hosted by way of Jermaine Dupri that includes aspiring child rappers. At 14, she used to be at the 13th season of “The usa’s Were given Skill,” and took each alternatives with the intention to develop her emblem and give a boost to her musical skills. Nowadays, the Georgia big name has greater than 300,000 per thirty days listeners on Spotify.
Managing a full-time school basketball time table and rap profession would make many of us’s heads spin. However Johnson sees it as a blessing so as to use two of her presents concurrently. It used to be the rationale she selected LSU as her school; consistent with Johnson, it used to be the one faculty that equipped choices for her to reach each. However right through basketball season, the big name makes a speciality of the game, dedicating simplest 3 to 4 hours an afternoon for song.
“It will get worrying, time control sensible. I am nonetheless running on that,” Johnson stocks. “That is one of the vital talents when I am getting that one all of the manner down pat, I’m going to be long past. I would be capable to execute concepts and all of the stuff I would like.”
Johnson has an exhilarating yr forward with basketball and the Would possibly free up of her new challenge, “Perfect of Each Worlds.” As her first respectable EP, “Perfect of Each Worlds” boasts 9 songs, together with one that includes hip-hop icon Lil Wayne. The sound represents a departure for Johnson.
“I will be able to’t stay up for other people to listen to this,” the musician says. “Ain’t My Fault,” or AMF for brief, is likely one of the 3 songs at the EP that used to be launched early. That includes Memphis rapper NLE Choppa, the track offers nostalgic nods to her overdue father and her basketball function fashions. She raps, “Balling like my daddy, surprising like my daddy” and “I stay on pimpin’ like I am Scottie,” a tribute to Scottie Pippen, the previous Bulls ahead. Johnson says she spent rather less than a yr crafting the tracks.
In spite of all her thrilling accomplishments, Johnson hasn’t all the time been cheered on by way of the general public. “I have been getting far more hate than I ever did in my existence,” she stocks. However she chooses to show the opposite cheek: “I see it, recognize it, however I do not let it get to me. As a result of I am in a position to make a choice whether or not it impacts me or no longer, I do not even let it get that some distance.”
“After all, it is our time. Ladies’s sports activities and basketball goes nowhere anytime quickly.
That does not imply she is not aware about the headlines, each sure and unfavorable. And he or she is conscious that she’s being scrutinized for being a Black girl in The usa, and that she has Black ladies taking a look as much as her. “It’s not essentially a weight, however it is rather irritating being within the public eye,” she says. “They get a scope on you, so you have to simply transfer in a definite manner, particularly while you encourage such a lot of other people. Then looking to simply navigate that with being a standard child, it may be so much.”
However all of the exhausting paintings and determination has been price it. Johnson has monetized her title, symbol, and likeness (NIL) via a large number of sports activities beverages, type, and good looks offers. In line with On3, her NIL is valued at $1.1 million. And in combination, Brooks and Johnson have transform a mother-daughter energy duo that has landed offers with Powerade, Nike, Puma, Meta, JBL Audio, Experian, and lots of different manufacturers.
The place many 20-year-olds may insurrection in opposition to their folks, Johnson holds Brooks shut. “I simply know she’s were given the most efficient passion in me at middle,” the purpose guard says in their skilled dating. “No one’s going to have my easiest passion like my mother. She’s realized the sport, realized how one can organize, and realized such a lot stuff [to get me where I needed to be] that it simplest made sense that she’d be my supervisor and stroll me via those doorways. I simply concept, stay my mom by way of my aspect.”
Along with circle of relatives relationships, Johnson helps to keep a powerful tie to her place of birth. In 2018, Johnson was the primary youngster to obtain Savannah’s key to the town, and she or he could be very concerned and dedicated to giving again to her group and state. Right through her collegiate profession, the big name has teamed up along with her quite a lot of donors to reward headphones, faculty garments, and sports activities sneakers to youngsters in Georgia.
Wearing out this paintings, Johnson’s subsequent large purpose is to construct a useful resource heart for the kids in Savannah. “I need to provide the youngsters in my town with an outlet the place they are able to pass to play sports activities, be ingenious, and be told,” she says. Johnson could be very conscious that this calls for numerous time, assets, and determination, and she or he’s in it for the lengthy haul. “I would like my emblem and trade to develop as a result of I do not need to do this simply on vacations. I need to assist the economic system and setting during the yr. I am staying in class so I will be able to be told trade and acquire the equipment had to effectively see those objectives out.”
In the whole lot she does, Johnson hopes to be an inspiration for others and stay the momentum up round girls’s sports activities. “The presence that girls’s sports activities occupies is so stunning,” Johnson says. “After all, it is our time. Ladies’s sports activities and basketball goes nowhere anytime quickly. It is simply going to be normalized.”
Natasha Marsh is a contract author who writes about type, good looks, and way of life. Previous to freelancing, she held styling workforce positions at The Wall Boulevard Magazine, Burberry, Cosmopolitan Mag, British GQ, and Harpers Bazaar.