On Sunday, Flau’Jae Johnson will lead her LSU women’s basketball team into an Elite Eight matchup with No. 1 overall seed UCLA in the women's 2025 NCAA Tournament.
It’s a familiar position for Johnson, a junior guard who has made it to at least the Elite Eight in each of her three college seasons.
With one year of eligibility still remaining, she has crammed a lot of accomplishments into her yet-to-be-completed college career. LSU has won 96 games since she arrived on campus in 2022. After winning SEC Freshman of the Year in 2023, she added first-team all-conference and third-team all-American honors this season. Perhaps most memorably, she was a starter on the Tigers’ 2023 national championship team.
And those are just her accomplishments on the basketball court.
Johnson has been much more than an athlete over the past decade, as she has balanced her basketball exploits with a burgeoning hip-hop career that has drawn in much more attention as her on-court profile has grown.
Before she takes the court with her LSU teammates with a return trip to the Final Four on the line, here’s a closer look at Johnson and her rap career:
Flau’Jae Johnson rap career
Johnson found herself in the national spotlight as a rapper and performer long before she did so as a basketball player.
As a 12-year-old, she appeared on “The Rap Game,” a Lifetime reality show that followed five young aspiring hip-hop artists who showcased their talents to some of the bigger stars of the genre. Even at that young age, Johnson was turning heads, earning praise from the likes of Jermaine Dupri, Rick Ross, Fabolous and Da Brat on the show.
Her promise and potential was on display again the following year when she appeared on “America’s Got Talent” and performed a song, “I Can’t Lose,” about proving doubters wrong. If there were any doubts among the crowd and panel of judges before she rapped her first bar, those quickly vanished.
As a tearful Johnson finished the song, she received a standing ovation from the audience and the judges. Even the famously cold and snide Simon Cowell was in awe.
"I'm not an expert, but I think you, the lyrics, the tracks, everything feels real,” he said. “I don't say that a lot of the time. I really like you.”