Hot Sugar (song)

"Hot Sugar" is a song by American singer Tamar Braxton from her second studio album, Love and War (2013).

"Hot Sugar" was planned to be the lead single from Love and War before it was replaced by the album's title track, which performed better on radio.

The music video for "Hot Sugar" was directed by photographers Steven Gomillion and Dennis Leupold and features Braxton along with male dancers on Tamartiangram, a spoof of Instagram.

[4] Braxton co-wrote "Hot Sugar" with LaShawn Daniels, Makeba Riddick, and Kyle "K2" Stewart II for Love and War.

[4][17] Riddick thought the production incorporated "a hard, bouncy beat that we knew was gonna make the clubs go crazy".

[21] In Rap-Up, Devin identified the song as a "ratchet club banger",[18] and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch's Kevin C. Johnson viewed it, along with the Love and War track "She Did That", as "silly dance numbers".

[25] Melody Charles for SoulTracks likened the lyrics, "Count it out, give that man what he dreams about / t-shirt and some heels on while he chase you all around the house", to "an aerobic 'sexy-back' manual for that special night in".

"[23] In The Washington Post, Chris Kelly cited the song as representative of the album's themes, which he identified as "age-old tales about finding and fighting for love and about relationships that require work".

[21] Melody Charles considered the album's uptempo songs "hit-and-miss", but praised "Hot Sugar" as "tart and tangy fun".

[26] When Braxton previewed three Love and War songs for Ebony, Brooke Obie responded that "Hot Sugar" was the magazine's favorite.

[12][17] AllMusic's Andy Kellman dismissed the track as "mind-numbing" and inferior to the album's ballads, saying it was "no match for the fully formed songs that seem rooted in Braxton's life experiences".

[17] Joshuah Gillin of the Tampa Bay Times found the song average and nondescript, but felt that might help it succeed as a radio single.

[32] In the video, directed by photographers Steven Gomillion and Dennis Leupold,[33] Braxton dances and poses on Tamartiangram, a spoof of Instagram.

[3] On Instagram, Braxton accused Gomillion and Leupold of abandoning the music video during its production to instead work with Rihanna for her Diamonds World Tour.

[14][33][note 3] Braxton claimed that she had to hire other people to edit and complete it;[14] she further criticized the photographers for not promoting it on their social media accounts.

[41] When they appeared onstage, Tamar threw a water bottle at them;[41] she described the Atlanta show as a big moment in her career and felt her sisters had ruined it for her and the audience.