GloRilla's Rise From North Memphis Rapper to Global Star

“What I talk like?” GloRilla asks all of us on her tour bus from deep within her lilac puffer coat. It’s a chilly, misty Veteran’s Day in New York City, she’s several days into a press run, and for the last 15 minutes, she has been lounging on a solo chair in the back as we—a 15-person entourage split between the bus and trailing black car—sit in midday traffic. GloRilla, her publicist, her black sprinter van, her security detail, and I are in her tour bus. And as our interview broaches the subject of her accent, she lifts up to challenge us, swatting away her thigh-length, platinum blonde waves as everyone hesitantly giggles: “Can y'all try to talk like me?” she pushes, “I don't know how I sound.”

We try, but none of us can effectively mirror her, because nobody sounds like GloRilla. The rising Memphis rapper has a specifically Memphis drawl: When she says “music,” she stretches the first syllable into “myoo.” Then, she slides an “r” in the middle of it, so that it sounds like “myursic.” Moreover, she doesn’t elongate her sentences. Instead, GloRilla speaks urgently, cutting off the ends of words and blending her consonants: On “F.N.F. (Let’s Go),” the breakout record she dropped in April, the “t” as she booms “Let’s gooooo” is silent. Delivering it all in a deep, husky growl that makes her an obvious standout. “The accent is just natural,” she says. “It’s the bass in my voice that I added, something extra when I rap.”

It’s her voice, her attitude, and her flavor that have caught the world’s attention. And, of course, her princess street rap: her lyrics and themes hold a certain level of femininity that align with women listeners, but her sound has an aggression and authority—the extra bass GloRilla puts on wax—that brings in all types of listeners. I’ve been in parties where, when mixed over sinister crunk beats layered with keyboard synths and drum patterns, the men in the crowd are more than happy to shout GloRilla’s lyrics about scamming or receiving sexual favors. “I’m just different,” she shrugs.

It’s been less than a year since GloRilla stepped into the game, and she already has two hit singles, a BET Award, and a Grammy nomination. Plus, her newly released EP Anyways... Life’s Great debuted at no.11 on the Billboard 200 album chart. Because of this, GloRilla’s schedule is jam-packed with visits to three radio stations, the Billboard office, and a meet-and-greet album signing. The day, dreary weather aside, begins smoothly when I meet up with the rapper at 9 a.m. outside of Sway in the Morning’s Rockefeller Center studio. She’s just as sprightly and youthful as she appears on social media and in her videos: When TikToker Cristian Dennis asks to perform a dance with her on camera outside of the building, she complies with a laugh.

But as she checks the three radio visits (one at Sway and two with SiriusXM stations) off her to-do list before 1 p.m., the fatigue starts to set in. Back aboard the tour bus and on the way to our next destination, we get stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic. There’s a parade marching down Fifth Avenue, the exact street we need to be on. The bus driver and Glo’s publicist anxiously try to find a way around the gridlock, but Glo—unaware of the situation—leans back in her seat and sparks a meaty blunt. With just one exhale, her face relaxes and she musters up the energy to tell me her story.

GloRilla was born Gloria Hallelujah Woods in the summer of 1999 in Frayser, a neighborhood that leans on I-40 and the Mississippi River on Memphis’ north side. She was named after her grandmother. Though she can’t remember the origin story of her middle name, she was born into a large and conservative Christian family, the eighth of 10 kids, and acknowledges that her religious background may have played a significant role. Growing up, her family didn’t practice Christmas traditions like gift-giving because they believed they were derived from a Pagan custom. But even with her religious upbringing, music was always present. Her parents often played gospel artists like Kirk Franklin and Donnie McClurkin in the house.

Despite her parents’ religious beliefs, the hardcore rapper says they have always backed her career choice: “My daddy know I be talking crazy. Him and my mama,” she adds, giggling and shaking her head remembering the time her dad called her laughing about the title of her single “Nut Quick.” Normally, though, her parents just follow her moves on the internet. “They search me up on YouTube every day and find out everything I done did.” Besides the gospel playing in her background, rap music was also prevalent in her early years: Though GloRilla was an avid 106 & Park viewer like many Y2K kids, it was the street rappers who drew her to the art. “Chief Keef, that’s who inspired me to rap,” she says decidedly, reflecting on her early musical taste. “I was a big fan of his.”

It’s been nearly 30 minutes on the tour bus, and we remain at a complete standstill. Every road is blocked. The team is stressed, making phone calls trying to ensure that we on the bus and the rest of her entourage in the black car ahead of us can get to the next appointment, but GloRilla is feeling wavy. Inhaling another jumbo puff from the blunt and reflecting on the five years since high school that saw her transition from rap fan to rap performer, she recalls casually goofing around with a cousin of hers, performing social media rap challenges until one day, in 2018, when he encouraged her to take her talent seriously. He booked a session at a professional studio, and from there she hit the ground running. In 2019, GloRilla released her debut mixtape Most Likely Up Next, followed by an independent EP, P Status, in 2020. Although her earlier projects showed a glimmer of her star power, Glo admits she’s improved a lot since then. “I feel like I got way better with my delivery and flow,” she says, stretching after a long exhale. After honing her skills over the next two years, GloRilla came back with a fire lit under her.

“F.N.F.” (an acronym for “Fuck Nigga Free”), the Hitkidd-produced record GloRilla dropped in April, was nothing like the radio-friendly records spinning at the time, especially not from a woman artist. Introducing herself as Big Glo on the track, she raps about breaking free of fuck boys and scrubs over a gritty beat that borrows from Memphis’ crunk past. She knew it was a hit, but “I ain’t expect it to go crazy like it did,” she says, shaking her head, still in disbelief. When the song took off, she realized she had to shoot an emergency music video to take advantage of its viral popularity and called every single number in her phone to shoot something fast. Her “Glo Gang” of day-one friends dropped everything to come twerk with her under a stoplight and hang out of cars doing donuts in a parking lot. Some of them, like K Carbon, Slimeroni, Aleza, and Gloss Up, who recently signed to Quality Control Music, are talented rappers in their own right.

The track was GloRilla’s first Billboard Hot 100 entry, peaking at No. 42, and deemed one of Complex’s best songs of 2022. The song gained even more traction after a snippet of the chorus went viral on TikTok, sparking countless #FNFChallenge dance videos, and artists like Erica Banks, Kali, and Renni Rucci began dropping freestyles over its instrumental. Glo uploaded the song to streaming platforms on April 29, and by July 5 the emerging rapper confirmed she signed to Yo Gotti’s Collective Music Group imprint. In a video circulating the Internet, Yo Gotti handed GloRilla a $500,000 signing bonus and took her friends to celebrate on a private jet.

She shrugs when I ask her why she chose to sign with Gotti, as though the decision was a no-brainer: “You know, it just felt right,” she says. Gotti and Glo both hail from Memphis, which she says played a huge factor. It’s clear how much she looks up to her label’s CEO when she describes what he means to her and her city: “Gotti is a hometown hero because he reached back and signed a lot of artists from Memphis”—like her lablelmates Moneybagg Yo, EST Gee, and 42 Dugg—“myself included.” GloRilla’s success already reaches outside of her hometown, but she never neglects to shout out her city. “Memphis is top tier when it comes to music. I'm so glad [that] the last couple years we've been getting the notoriety, because Memphis is known for music too,” she says.

When I ask what other little bits of home she brings with her on the road—the day before, she had been in Maryland, and later that week she was off to Philly and then Connecticut—she says seasoned salt and hot sauce. No matter what city she travels to, whether domestic or abroad, Glo says the cuisine is missing that Memphis flavor. “They food don't got nothing,” she declares of meals prepared outside her hometown. “They don't put seasoning in their food. I got to have seasoned food. I hate bland food," she says, while twisting behind and under her seat trying to locate the bag that holds her spices and condiments before realizing it's in the car and not on the bus.

When an artist blows up quickly in today’s digital streaming era, one-hit wonder accusations are always lurking, and people question how much longevity GloRilla would have in the rap game. But she squashed a lot of that chatter in September, when she dropped “Tomorrow 2.” The original version came out in early July, but this one featured a guest verse from Cardi B. It was a co-sign that caught Glo by surprise. As the story goes, Cardi B sent GloRilla a voice message, shortly after “F.N.F.” blew up, with words of encouragement. Then, when she was thinking of who to collaborate with on the “Tomorrow” remix, she instantly considered Cardi. “I was in the studio one day and I was listening to all my songs, and I’m like, ‘Who can I put on this song?’” Glo told SK Vibemaker in October. “So I’m like, ‘OK, I’m finna text Cardi.’ I text her and I was like, ‘I got a song I want you on.’ She was like, ‘Girl, I already did my verse on ‘Tomorrow.’ I was like, ‘What?!’ [Yo Gotti] and them were tryna surprise me.” On an Instagram Live session a few hours before the their music video dropped (they didn’t even meet in-person until the shoot), Cardi told Glo, “I loved this song. I love you as a person… I love your personality because you really remind me of me and my friends. You just looked like a good time.”

“Tomorrow 2” is a certified banger. Produced by Macaroni Toni, it’s a modern day motivational anthem that encourages listeners to find the rainbow even on the cloudiest of days. GloRilla’s verse was already fantastic—“Every day the sun won't shine, but that's why I love tomorrow,” she raps—but what makes the remix so magical is Glo’s Memphis style colliding with Cardi’s Bronx drill approach over a hard-hitting 808 beat. Glo pushes Cardi to deliver a new cadence and flow that is grittier than her previous singles, while Cardi brings even more fun and playful energy to the track. Together, they dish out braggadocious and punchy bars that work well as an Instagram caption or fun one-liners to yell in the club. “I stay on her mind, I got condos in that bitch head,” Cardi B spits. With “F.N.F.” and “Tomorrow 2” giving her two consecutive Hot 100 entries under her belt, Big Glo felt immense pressure to deliver even more with her debut EP, Anyways... Life’s Great. “Every song I got out right now, they were going crazy for,” she explains, taking another hit of the blunt while we only inch a little forward in traffic. “So I know they expected the most out of me for my EP. That’s what I was nervous about.”

The nine-track project includes three of her previously released hits, “F.N.F., “Tomorrow 2,” and “Nut Quick,” as well as a handful of tracks GloRilla recorded over the last few years. She notes that her creative process isn’t confined to one room or studio. “Out Loud Thinking,” the most pensive record on the project, was written in a KFC/Taco Bell drive-thru in Memphis. (If you listen closely, the song includes an outro from the cousin who ignited her passion to rap years earlier.) Other singles came out of conversations with friends or during a calm night in the house, she reminisces. Given the way the project speaks to women’s experiences, it makes sense. On “No More Love,” she makes timely comments on subjects such as abortion (“Last year, I got pregnant, but the mission got aborted, B”), and on “Get That Money,” one of Glo’s favorites, she discusses the dynamics of sex and money. “I rap about the life that a lot of females live,” Glo tells me. “This real life.”

Since GloRilla rose to prominence, she’s received an outpouring of support, especially from fellow women in the industry. The conversation about women in rap has been a talking point since the ‘80s, but has become even larger in the last 10 years. While hip-hop is undoubtedly seeing a renaissance in female rap, the media and even fans have participated in pitting them against one another. Last summer, rumors swirled that GloRilla and Saweetie were beefing after the “F.N.F.” remix dropped with Latto and JT features instead of Saweetie’s previously announced verse. Glo isn’t concerned with industry politics and fictional feuds, though. “I ain’t know they was trying to make us beef,” Glo scoffs. “We never thought that shit. We always, ‘What's up sis?’ I don't know what the fuck they talking about. In general, they do try to pit women against each other. They don't do that to males. It be a lot of lying and shit. That's why I learned to not give a fuck about any of that shit.”

After nearly an hour of maneuvering the tour bus through a maze of barricades around Times Square and Bryant Park, we finally arrive at Billboard, where Glo is set to do a video interview. Reunited with the rest of her entourage, everyone files through a revolving door to sign in at the front desk. Gotti, who wasn’t present during the first leg of the press run, creeps in a few moments later. He doesn’t say anything at first, but news of his presence immediately travels to Glo at the front of the pack. “Big Glo!” Gotti says in his own Memphis drawl. Turning around, the mentor and mentee share a brief but warm moment as they dap each other up and Gotti congratulates her on her success.

A few weeks later, GlorRilla and her entourage are back in Midtown, coming through Complex's Times Square offices for an on-camera interview. She’s wearing a fuzzy white matching set, thigh-high leather boots, and still in shock about her Best Rap Performance Grammy nomination for “FNF," the song she dropped less than a week after her car was repoed. When I ask her what she wants her trajectory to be, she says she’s following in the footsteps of Beyoncé, but in her own lane. It’s a type of superstardom that’s not out of the question as the world can’t seem to get enough of her. At Lil Baby's birthday party in Atlanta earlier this month, she was palling around with Drake, and the video of him playfully holding her diamond chain quickly spread online. And there’s been a great deal of commentary about a personal assistant job role she was looking to fill with a $550 weekly salary, too. All in all, the internet is paying attention to Glo’s every move. But next year, she’ll connect with fans IRL when she heads out for her first solo tour—a 16-city trek that will wind around the country before taking her back to Memphis for a grand finale at home. There’s a lot going on, but GloRilla isn't too far removed from a life that wasn’t this glitzy and glamorous, so she's thankful for it all and optimistic about the future. When I ask how she feels about her Grammy nomination, she parts that bright smile to say this: “I feel super blessed and highly favored.” Hallelujah to that.

GLORILLA FEELS COZY AT THE TOP

EVERYTHING ABOUT GLORILLA IS DISTINCTLY MEMPHIS, BUT HER TALENT’S TAKING HER

FROM FRAYSER TO THE WORLD.

"They try to pit women against each other. They don't do that to males... That's why I learned to not give a fuck about any of that shit.”

"Memphis is top tier

when it comes to music."

"I rap about the life that a lot of [women] live... This REAL LIFE."