Memphis hitmaker GloRilla shares her journey from working at Walmart to signing a record deal

The past year was an extremely difficult one for GloRilla, one of America’s fastest-rising rappers. She left her job at Walmart to concentrate on her passion, which is music. She was discouraged from her career path, she told the Million Dollaz Worth of Game podcast. However, she remained unfazed despite going broke.

“I was losing everything like my apartments, my cars,” she noted in the interview. “I was almost down to nothing. It was like the end of last year and the beginning of this year. I was just all the way starting over and was like, ‘D-mn, I’m finna have to go back to work.’”

She remained committed to her music career and her consistency eventually paid off. The Memphis rapper got signed to Yo Gotti’s record label, “CMG”, following the success of her hit song “F.N.F (Let’s Go)”. The song has accumulated over 30 million streams across all platforms and was labeled as the song of the summer by several fans.

The signing also made her the first female rap artist on the label. She joined Yo Gotti’s impressive roster which includes Moneybagg Yo, 42 Dugg and EST Gee. Others are Mozzy, Blac Youngsta, Blocboy JB, and Lil Poppa.

“GloRilla is a natural born star – she has a different sound and approach that’s needed in hip-hop right now,” Gotti said. “It’s one of the quickest rises that I’ve seen in my career because she only dropped in late April and now she has the hottest cultural records in music. Glo is hungry for success and determined to win. We look forward to watching her grow as an artist and reach her full potential.”

“I’ve put in years of hard work to get to this point and I’m blessed to sign with the hottest label in music with CMG. I manifested this moment and trusted my talent even when others didn’t. I’m grateful to Gotti for believing in me and I’m not gonna let up. Trust that I have more new heat on the way,” she said after inking her deal on a private jet in July.

Born in 1999 as Gloria Hallelujah Woods in Memphis, Tennessee, GloRilla grew up in a religious family with nine siblings. “Life wasn’t always easy, but we made the best out of everything”, she told GQ. While in high school, she started listening to more rap. After high school, GloRilla realized she wanted to rap so she began participating in online rap challenges. By 2018, she had made her first visit to a professional studio to make her dreams come true. “That one time I was in the studio I fell in love,” she said. “I said ‘Okay, this what I’m going to do and I’m gonna take it serious.’”