GloRilla is Torn Between Going Big and Going Hard

GloRilla’s major-label debut Glorious harkens back towards the glory years of the dirty South. One track, “Hollon,” adopts the chorus from DJ UNK of “Walk It Out” fame’s “Hold on Ho.” Another, “Let Her Cook,” flips the same Isaac Hayes sample that girded C-Murder’s “Down for My Niggaz.” Then there’s “Whatchu Know Bout Me,” where Glo and Sexxy Red throw bows over a track partly constructed from Lil Boosie’s “Wipe Me Down.” “I love ratchet bitches twerkin’ to the beat/If you hear this song playin’, shake that ass for Glo and me,” raps Sexxy Red.

Alas, it’s not the Aughts anymore. Most of Glorious’ fifteen tracks feel truncated, snipped into quick two-verse, two-and-half-minute bursts to capture internet-addled attention spans. It may be weird to admit nostalgia for the 70-minute CD bloat that afflicted so many albums at the turn of the century. But “I Luv Her” simply doesn’t sound right when T-Pain doesn’t croon grandiloquently in his inimitable Auto-Tune for over five minutes, even as Glo drops funny lines like claiming she’s her man’s “favorite redbone” and rapping, “I know I be naggin’ sometimes/Shit, put dick in my mouth, make me shut up or something.”

At Glorious’ center are two spiritual-minded tracks. The first, “Rain Down on Me,” is a lavish gospel testimonial with Kirk Franklin, Maverick City Music, Kierra Sheard, and Chandler Moore. It’s followed by “Glo’s Prayer,” a less-sanctimonious cut where Glo asks for heavenly guidance in ending a bad relationship. Then, she shifts awkwardly back to throwing bows with “How I Look,” a collaboration with Megan Thee Stallion where she brags about “pulling up in shit I know they can’t pronounce.” Glorious illustrates the quandary some rappers face when tasked with making “debut” albums after years of mixtapes. Should GloRilla make, as she put it to the New York Times, “big-sounding songs” for Grammy-sized exposure, or simply floss and talk shit like her fans want? She inevitably leans into the latter technique while occasionally gesturing towards urban radio bait like “Don’t Deserve,” a mediocre R&B cut with Muni Long.

Ironically, one of Glorious’s best cuts is “I Ain’t Going,” where Glo angrily speaks out against gender violence. “I ain’t going for all that rough-me-up and grab me by the neck/Nigga put his hands on me, we gon’ be smoking on him next,” she raps in her patented sharp flow and deep, gruff voice. When she’s going hard, there’s little need for her to compromise her message.