If you’ve followed GloRilla’s journey, you know she always empowers and spotlights her friends. Now, her “BestFrenn” Gloss Up has been making a name for herself as Quality Control’s newest artist. To add, the Memphis rising star just dropped her debut mixtape Before The Gloss Up via the imprint.
With musical assistance from CMG artist and her BFF, the 13-track tape also includes features from QC label-mate Icewear Vezzo on “From Cross the Way,” and “F.N.F. (Let’s Go)” producer HitKidd on “Mad 304.” Gloss also collaborated with artists K Carbon, Aleza, and Slimeroni for the infectious track “Eeny Meeny Miny Moe.”
Aside from her 2022 assistance on Hitkidd’s “Shabooya,” and assisting fellow QC signee Lakeyah for “Real B*tch,” Gloss dropped her GloRilla-joint music video for “BestFrenn,” on Wednesday (Jan. 18).
Before The Gloss Up aims to “speak for the mommas,” Gloss exclusively shared with VIBE when discussing the tone she wants to set with the project. “I feel like I’m speaking for the mommas. A lot of girls be [trying] to hide their kids, or that they got kids. I don’t understand why, but I choose to put my kids out there because I really love them.”
She added, “I’ve been [trying] to get away from like literally rapping a whole song about them because when I was pregnant, that’s all I was doing. I got tired of it.”
Before signing on to QC last year, the 25-year-old was given her stage name by her grandfather. “I used to wear a lot of vaseline on my face,” she revealed. “My granddaddy used to call me glossy … I just so happened to come up with Gloss Up.”
The mommy of two now joins QC’s powerhouse roster of artists including Cardi B, Lil Baby, City Girls, Migos, Lakeyah, and more.
But what sets her and fellow Memphis artists apart from the rest? “I think we raw, aggressive, like we say whatever,” she said. “I think we just don’t got no filter and everybody else just want to be Hollywood and act like they a perfect person. Memphis tell you what it is.”
Gloss Up is set to join GloRilla on her upcoming Anyways…Life’s Great tour kicking off on January 27th in North Carolina.
Check out the cover art for Before The Gloss Up above and take a listen here.