Lady London, a.k.a. Zaire Miylaun Stewart, is ready to turn up the yard. She’ll be in attendance at Howard University’s Homecoming this year. The rapper still vividly remembers her freshman homecoming experience as a student at her alma mater, Howard University.
“It was Drake, Meek Mill and Two Chainz. Everybody performed at my yard fest during the pouring rain, and we couldn’t have been, we couldn’t have been happier outside rocking with them.”
She continued, “I have such respect for HBCU culture. We’re the center and cornerstone for culture and being at the forefront of a great legacy.”
For London, Howard was where she learned to lean into culture and navigate the world. “I learned tenacity and resilience at Howard, and I think it empowers my music, just embracing my Blackness, which was really important for me.”
London earned a Bachelor of Science degree from Howard University and a Master’s degree from the University of Southern California, making this multifaceted individual a double-degreed baddie. She then found herself at a crossroads that would take her from a professional path in medicine to the mic.
“Concluding my master’s degree, I was applying for jobs, and I was underqualified for PhD positions and overqualified for bachelor’s positions,” she recalled. “That process was defeating for me to know that I had gone to so much school, and I still really wasn’t prepared for the workplace because they wanted experience that I didn’t have because there were years of schooling, schooling that I had already endured.”
Down, but definitely not out, she put pen to paper and word to voice, dropping “Lady Londays.” Just like she had applied herself at Howard, London dug in and released a new post every Monday for a year. “I was like, ‘Man, this is picking up way faster than a job. I’m gonna continue to grow,” she stated.
“As I started to get recognition from some of the greats, some of my favorite people in the game, legacy legend artists. I thought in that moment, this may actually be my real calling because it just came so naturally.”
London’s driving spirit is on full display in her docuseries, Always, Lady London, now airing on Tubi. “A lot of what social media shows is what I call your highlight reel. They show you all the glorious times of your life, and no one ever really sees where you messed up or what you had to endure on the way there,” she said of doing the show.
“This doc is the process, everything we have moved through in order to get to where you are as a consumer. And it shows that [artists] are human at the same time and deal with regular day-to-day. I hope it can humanize people’s viewpoint of me.”
Schooled by the sounds and work ethic of Lauryn Hill, Aaliyah, Janet Jackson, Whitney Houston, and Lady Gaga, London is sharpening her sound and flow. And for the next chapter? “I’ve dropped a single called “Ten” along with the docuseries. And next year, I look forward to my first debut album, To Whom It May Concern,” she shared.
“We’re gonna have about three to four features on there and about 13 records altogether. It’s gonna speak to this boastful, bold, confident era that I’m entering,” she teased. “You’ll also see there are vulnerable moments that I speak to, like in the docuseries. It’s just an all-engulfing, cohesive, versatile project that I think everybody will really enjoy.”