GLORIOUS

The scrappy Memphis rapper has been on a two-year victory lap since her 2022 breakthrough hit “F.N.F. (Let’s Go)” established her as one of rap’s most promising new voices. Since then, GloRilla’s dropped an EP (2022’s <i>Anyways, Life’s Great...</i>) and her first studio mixtape (2024’s <i>Ehhthang Ehhthang</i>), scored a Grammy nomination and sold out arenas alongside Megan Thee Stallion for the Hot Girl Summer Tour. The glow-up is real on <i>GLORIOUS</i>, her official debut album, but let it be known that the reigning queen of crunk is still hanging out the window with her ratchet-ass friends when the opportunity arises. “It’s 7 pm Friday/It’s 95 degrees/I ain’t got no n***a and no n***a ain’t got me,” she declares in the opening bars of “TGIF”, a worthy “F.N.F.” follow-up made for blasting at max volume. There’s plenty of the rowdy girl-power anthems fans have come to expect from Big Glo, among them the bad-bitch motivational “PROCEDURE” with Latto and “WHATCHU KNO ABOUT ME”, a Sexyy Red collab that riffs on the Trill Entertainment classic “Wipe Me Down”. Less expected is “RAIN DOWN ON ME”, a gospel number with a blessing from Kirk Franklin, though it’s really only fitting for a rapper born Gloria Hallelujah Woods.