Rap Renaissance Memphis women are at the forefront of a rap revival.

Kailynn Johnson
4:00 a.m. Jul. 26, 2023

While our favorite “Hot Girl Coach” Megan Thee Stallion coined “Hot Girl Summer” in 2019, a new term made its way into the mainstream last summer — and at the hands of Memphis’ own rap princess GloRilla. In 2022, it was almost impossible to open our TikTok FYPs and not find a video with her song “F.N.F. (Let’s Go).” It became an anthem for end-of-summer photo dumps and Instagram stories, and a new light shined on our city’s rap scene.

Whether it was the infectious Memphis energy in the music videos for “F.N.F.” or “Tomorrow 2” or the rawness and realness of her cadence, GloRilla was met with explosive success. Not only did that put her in the spotlight, but it put new emphasis on Memphis-bred women in rap.

“Memphis female artists are so gangsta,” says Zachary Hurth, a content creator, director, and media consultant, who may be best known for his Back Of The Class (BOTC). The IG channel (@backoftheclasss_) boasts more than 50,000 followers and features “desk freestyles” with up-and-coming Memphis stars, including K Carbon, Gloss Up, and Slimeroni.

“If you remember being in school and you turned around, that’s what Back Of The Class is,” says Hurth. “It’s rapping in the back of the class like we really used to do. It’s like a stage for artists to come and show their creativity, show who really can rap.”

Whether rappers from Memphis “really can rap” has never been a question — the city has birthed a number of rap legends, with Young Dolph, Moneybagg Yo, and Gangsta Boo among them. But a rap renaissance is upon us, and many local women are at the forefront.

Hurth has taken his BOTC project outside of the city — to Los Angeles, Dallas, and Atlanta — and says the Memphis vibe is incomparable. “It’s female artists blowing up everywhere,” Hurth says. “But it’s something about the way a Memphis woman pops; nobody in America — across the world — can do it like them.

“When they come in, they give it their all. They’re not acting,” says Hurth. “And they got this good morale because they’re seeing themselves blow up.”

The Flyer spoke to three of Memphis’ emerging female rap artists (two of whom have been featured on BOTC) who are in the midst of such a “blow up” — women who are contributing to the evolution of the genre.

A.R. The Mermaid (Photo: Tamara May)
A.R. The Mermaid

The titular character of Hans Christian Andersen’s fairytale has been prone to revamping since her inception. But one artist has decided to do it with an East Memphis flair and an alternative vibe. Her name is Ariel Wright (“Big A.R., not the little one,” she says) — and there’s a new mermaid in town.

A.R. The Mermaid has always known she was “that bitch,” she says, and she’s never needed the validation of others to confirm that.

While mermaids are her mythical creature of choice, her style and brand are a juxtaposition of several identities that pay homage to a few of her favorite female artists. “I got Erykah Badu, which is [representative of] being different. Tina Turner with the rock-star vibes. Rico Nasty with the alternative look and the emo vibes,” she says.

As she draws inspiration from greats before her, she’s also forging her own distinct image and sound. Fashion-wise, you’ll find her scouring the racks of Hot Topic, Spencer’s, and Dolls Kill while rocking her signature black lip. Musically, she describes her style as a mix of alternative, emo, trap music, and R&B, marked by her notable raspy voice and free spirit. “No-fucks-given type of shit,” she says.

Music has always been a way for A.R. to express herself, and she’s well versed in several genres aside from rap. She dates some of her formative experiences to singing in her church, and she was in a singing group during her teenage years.

“I stopped singing when I was 17, 18. Started rapping probably when I was like 20,” she says.

“Honestly, I fell out of love with singing for a second. It just got too crucial. I had to take a break mentally and get my mind right.

“And my way of expressing myself with what was going on at the moment was to rap. Singing wasn’t in me, so I was like, ‘Hey, maybe I should start rapping.’” The 25-year-old says once she started taking that music “to the streets,” it was kismet, and “[the people] started fucking with it.”

When A.R. spoke with the Flyer, she was still riding the high following the release of her single “Sneaky Link.” The music video — her debut single with 300 Entertainment — premiered in May and has since hit over 22K views.

She never expected the song to have a virality to it — it just had a beat, composed by SGULL, that beckoned for a story to be told. “At the time, I was really going through that shit, so it was perfect,” she says. “It was really a vibe creating that.”

Her music teems with real-life experiences (in the case of “Sneaky Link,” the nuances of a secret link-up). The ability to tell stories through music has been freeing, she says, and she recognizes how her Memphis roots have catapulted her into a space where her sound and background are being celebrated.

“Memphis itself creates a whole new sound, just from our lingo, our flow, how we talk, just the sauce itself,” she says. “Being out here in Memphis really made me the artist that I am, like on some put-that-shit-together type of shit.”

Glockianna (Photo: Duke Nitty)
Glockianna

Being able to hold your own in a freestyle battle is the mark of true rap talent, and many Back Of The Class alumni have passed the test with flying colors. One such artist recently went viral on the platform, her session amassing nearly 69,000 likes.

The viral IG performance is almost ironic considering Glockianna didn’t care much for social media initially. “At first I hated social media,” she says. “Like, I hate when people bring up their opinions or how they feel about this person or that person because the person still going to do what they want to do in the end.”

Viewers of Glockianna’s freestyle video fill the comment section with fire emojis and note how “hard” of an artist she is. And when the 16-year-old speaks with the Flyer, that’s exactly how she describes herself — hard.

Glockianna has been rapping since she was 12 years old, and it all started as a way for her to grapple with her emotions. When she was younger, she often found herself getting into fights.

“I was fighting everybody,” she says. “But when I stopped fighting and put the aggression I had toward people to the song, and put it inside my music instead, it became a way for me to cope with my anger.”

Growing up in a family full of musicians, she always felt there was an opportunity for a career in music. But her proclivity to rap wasn’t a given. Her early musical memories are defined by R&B favorites like Jay Morris Group, but, she says, the moment she heard rap, she fell in love with it.

Rap has given her an outlet to tell her story, just the way it is. “I’m telling you what happened, why it happened, who did it to me, and how I feel about it basically,” she says.

A lot has happened in a short time since Glockianna honed in on her passion for the genre. She signed to Duke Deuce Enterprises’ Made Men Mafia (Triple M) record label in 2022. And she joined the famed Memphis rapper on stage for his Rolling Loud performance that year. The invitation to perform at the hip-hop festival “was a surprise for me honestly,” she says. “I thought he was joking, but he was like, ‘Nah, for real, you doing Rolling Loud.’”

That experience was pivotal for Glockianna. She’d previously performed in front of much smaller crowds. Even at those smaller shows, she was nervous. “Shaking in my boots,” she says.

But watching videos of her on stage as thousands raise their phones to capture the moment, it’s hard to believe that. She exudes confidence as she raps one of her anthems, “Stomp On Em.”

Glockianna admits that early on she was inclined to stick to the status quo, and not waver from her initial sound. But that has since changed. “When I go back and look at my music from then, I’m like, ‘Oh my God, terrible,’” she says. “I wasn’t really being myself and being comfortable. But my music now? Oh, it’s way better. Ain’t no cap in my rap; I really mean exactly what I’m saying.”

In the March 2023 release, “It Ain’t Glock Fault,” she keeps it real from the start, proclaiming she’s “keeping my foot on some necks” — and the rapper isn’t afraid to call someone out by name to tell it like it is. Though, Glockianna feels she still has to prove herself at times — because trolls still lurk.

“People do not take a young female seriously,” she says. “They see me and they’re like, ‘Oh she’s young and ain’t gonna last long and this and that.’ People think just because of my age and me being a female from South Memphis … they underestimate me a lot.”

There’s a duality to being a younger artist, she says. On one hand, it’s overcoming an archetype; on the other, it’s birthing a mystique. But people can’t help but be in awe of a talent who still maintains a spot on the honor roll.

“When I post on social media, or someone posts me, I get a lot of attention ’cause I’m young and what I say is powerful,” she says. “People love it.”

Jus Bentley (Photo: Jacorri Washington)
Jus Bentley

Artist Jus Bentley’s seventh album, rockS.T.A.R.(2023), is special to her. “S.T.A.R.,” she says, is an acronym for “status, trust, ambition, and respect” — to her, crucial tenets in the star-making process. For the album, she intentionally chose beats she had never rapped over before, or “beats you would never hear Jus Bentley on.”

“How can I make this mine?” the 29-year-old artist explains. “With how I rap, my flow, my cadence, how can I make these beats into a song that would be mine? So I tapped into not only rapping but songwriting.” The project wasn’t just about making one stellar song, but creating several that flow together as a story.

When Jus Bentley first started out at age 16, she was mostly focused on branding, as opposed to making music she found to be meaningful.

“I’m more conscious about what I’m saying [now]. When you grow or when you get older, you have to evolve,” she says. “If you listened to Jus Bentley when she was 18 or 19 versus Jus Bentley now, you’re going to see the evolution, the growth in the subject matter. You’re going to be able to grow with me.”

That growth led to opportunities to record with Don Trip (on Bentley’s “Want It” and Trip’s “Rocking”), and to work with notable artists Zed Zilla and Hitkidd (on “BU$Y”). She’s also earned a musical credit on the Starz hit show, P-Valley.

“I’m confident in who I am as a person, which allows me to be confident as an artist,” she says. “[Back then] I was a confident artist, but I wasn’t confident in myself. I took that time and said, ‘This is the type of artist I want to be,’ and that has helped me be a better person. When you’re a better person, or try to be, you can’t help but to attract good things.”

For her newer work, Jus Bentley was adamant about recording with and having her music mixed by women, so rockS.T.A.R. was mixed and mastered by SkilerJoi, with Lildezzyx as the recording engineer. “I wanted it to be a project that focused on women empowering other women,” she says. “If the majority does not look like you, you’re at a disadvantage. The majority of people that are in music, that promote music, that run music, or can get you to that next level are men. We’re already at a disadvantage from day one — the thing is learning how to navigate through those disadvantages.”

This article was originally featured on “memphisflyer.com”

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