FEATURE: Spotlight: GloRilla — Music Musings & Such

FEATURE:

Spotlight

GloRilla

__________

EVEN though she has a big fanbase…

I think that GloRilla is an artist still coming through. The U.S. rapper is a major force and inspiration, but I feel her best work is still ahead. Her remarkable E.P., at nine tracks long, could be seen more as an album. Even so, Anyways, Life’s Great, is something that announced an artist stepping into the spotlight. A twenty-three-year-old Tennessee-born artist, GloRilla (Gloria Hallelujah Woods) is coming to prominence. I am going to come to a few interviews with an artist that is among my favourite right now. GloRilla is definitely primed for world domination! I’ll start with COMPLEX’s in-depth interview with a major force in Rap. There are some sections of the interview that caught my eye:

“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”.

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.”

PHOTO CREDIT: Jerald Cooper

“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”.

In November, GRM Daily spent some time with the magnificent GloRilla. They asked her about the amazing debut E.P, signing to CMG, and going viral. I think that 2023 is going to be the most successful year for this phenomenal artist:

“With you growing up in the church, what did you listen to?

“My mom had us listening the gospel, we had to sneakily listen to the other music on radio. She would let us watch 106 and Park and BET countdown and stuff but driving in the car it was 95.7, Hallelujah FM”

Which artists did you enjoy listening to yourself?

“When I was young, I used to love Nelly, Soulja Boy, Bow Wow, I loved Beyonce. Then in high school it was Chief Keef”.

How did you decide you wanted to get into music?

“Chief Keef[…]like he was coming in so different, nobody was coming like him. Young, turnt, gangster. He created his own sound. That made me want to start rapping”.

A lot of rappers start off freestyling, was it like that for you?

“I went straight into writing, I’m not a freestyler, I’m a straight writer”.

A refreshing approach from a new age artist, she professes knowing she wanted to take music seriously from the start hence going straight into writing songs. Freestyling never being a thought, but delights she would be up for a deliver bars for a top line freestyle platform.

Pivoting to her breakout hit ‘FNF (Lets Go)’ alongside Hitkidd which has over 26Million streams on Spotify alone, the visual on a whopping 48Million+ YouTube views in 6 months. Many peoples entry point to GloRilla, excitable clips took over social media earlier this year.

How did “F.N.F” going crazy feel for you?

“It was crazy because I’ve never went viral before that but leading up to that I’d say around 2020 I have started going viral I was making little Triller videos to my songs. So I had the inner city like Memphis, Arkansas, Mississippi all rocking with me.

“So I made a triller for “F.N.F” and DJ Duffey, French Montana’s DJ, she made she made a reel to it on Instagram and it went viral. Then we done the video to it and that went viral as I had my pregnant friend in there at the red light, so everyone was going crazy about the video and then the song. It was crazy, I didn’t know what the hell to do”

Your visuals are all very fun, you have all your friends in the back, is that something you do consciously?

“It ain’t gotta be every video but the turnt videos then yeah[…] I never want to overdo a video unless its a serious serious song. And I don’t make serious serious songs, yet”

Is that something you want to get into?

“I actually have two pain songs on my EP!”

Getting into some of your collabs, “Tomorrow 2”, the “F.N.F” remix .. how did those come about?

“Cardi, I got hit with a was surprised when she did. I had been speaking to her about another song but I didn’t know they hit her to get her to do, my team tried to surprise me. She was like I already did the verse for Tomorrow and I was like what? And she sent me the clip and I heard it like omg she just murdered this song. She said to me we had to do a video. It was so good working with her, I love Cardi so bad, thats my cousin[…]the energy was unmatched. With JT and Latto, I was happy to have them on the song but I actually didn’t plan that or go to the studio with them”

When asked about who else she’d like to collab with, she playfully answered Chief Keef and Beyonce – two of her childhood listens.

Her debut EP released Friday 11th November, 11/11. As many angel numbers lovers would know, the numbers are said to hold a certain significance. Quickly chatting about it, GloRilla reveals it being a calculated coincidence.

What can we expect from the EP?

“I got two pain songs on there, turnt music on there too. I just feel like there isn’t any skips on there and hope everyone feels the same way too. I’m nervous because I know people are expecting a lot out of me. But I feel like they’ll like it”.

I’ll end with some coverage from NME. Maybe not as recognised here as in the U.S., I do think that GloRilla will get plenty of gig requests here. She is one of the best rappers in the world. There are so many incredible women adding their voices to the genre. In fact, I think they are leading the charge and creating the best, most important and original music:

“You’ve become close with Cardi B over the past year. What was it like working with her on ‘Tomorrow 2’?

“I ain’t got a lot of friends, and I’m just easy to deal with. Cardi is my cousin. I was so happy and excited during the whole creative process. Cardi is a really sweet soul and has such a genuine heart, and we come from a similar background, so it was easy to connect. And it was crazy when [‘Tomorrow 2’] hit the charts. I was like, ‘Ah! Ain’t nobody know about me a couple months ago!”

Cardi DM’d you when ‘FNF’ first started blowing up online. How did you react?

“I was like, ‘Oh my god!’ I had just got off the plane in New York, and I had been at the baggage claim and she texted me, almost as though she saw that I had landed in the city. I had been sending Cardi music since I first started rapping, and I tried for so long to get her to look at my music. But then she ended up listening, and liked my music, to the point where she was like, ‘I’ve already done my verse for ‘Tomorrow 2’, before I heard anything else from her. I love Cardi.”

What does your relationship with Yo Gotti and CMG Records mean to you?

“[Yo Gotti and I], we come from the same place in Memphis, so our connection is really like a culture thing. I had gone to a couple of [major] label meetings, but they weren’t getting me. I was listening to them but none of them were making me go, ‘Oh! I wanna do this’. But when I linked with Gotti, he made sure I understood him.

“When I first met Gotti, I met him on a yacht in Miami. He was saying to me that he believed in me past [the viral success of] ‘FNF’. Everybody else I was going to, they just wanted to sign me after one song. But Gotti liked my story and the rest of my music. There was something special there, I felt it.”

Your upcoming EP, ‘Anyway, Life’s Great’ will be released via the label. What does this new project represent to you?

“I think that people are going to love it. I got some catchy songs on there, but I also talk to my people there. There’s songs about… pain — well, I ain’t going to say pain because the only difference between the past me and who I am now is that I’ve got money now. I feel like I’m the same person, but [musically] I have found my sound. When I’m in the car with my manager and they start playing my old music, I’ll be like, ‘Turn it off!’.”

You grew up listening to drill pioneer Chief Keef. What do you continue to find so inspiring about him?

“Chief Keef is the person that truly influenced me. He’s young, turnt and gangsta – and that’s kinda what my music is like. I feel like I’m a female version of Chief Keef. I got faith. I got into Chief Keef in high school. In 2012, [when Chief Keef blew up], I was staying with my mom and she didn’t let us listen to [music] like that. The first song I heard of his was in ninth grade, and we had a project where we had to recreate skits, and these dudes had reenacted the video for [2013 hit] ‘Now It’s Over’. They played it and I was like, ‘I love this song!’, and then I looked up all of his songs.

“Chief Keef came out around the time I started to go to school, because before that, I was home-schooled, so all I knew was church music. I was in church, but at the same time, I was from a real ratchet area. We’d go to church, but when we’d go outside afterwards, all the bad kids got together. By the sixth grade, I was just badly behaved because I didn’t know how to act. My environment was split between going to church, and then going to the extremely hood schools.”

Do you feel like you’ve found your voice as an artist now?

“I’ve instilled in my head that anything I can do, I can do. I want to be the Beyoncé of my era — not just of rap music, but music in general. I don’t know anybody better than Beyoncé, just ‘cause I love her so much. I know people are sick of me talking about Beyoncé because they’ve heard me talk about her a million times. But, she had a big impact on my music, and I want to follow her”.

I am going to follow GloRilla, as I think that her career is going from strength to strength. Such a captivating presence, she will go down as one of the legends of Rap in years to come. With a new and thrilling E.P. in the world, the horizons are open for GloRilla. It only takes a few minutes of her stunning music before it…