Since she first started to blow up a couple of years ago, there’s been a lot of talk about when the young Atlanta rapper Mulatto would change her stage name. It seemed like it had to happen. The word “mulatto” is a racist slavery-era term for mixed-race kids. (The rapper is biracial.) Finally, it’s happened. The artist formerly known as Mulatto is now simply Latto.

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 was 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.” Here’s the song’s video: