GloRilla, “Anyways, Life’s Great…”

This no-fat, all-funk debut EP is like a hard, wet kiss planted unexpectedly on your lips.
Reviews

GloRilla, Anyways, Life’s Great…

This no-fat, all-funk debut EP is like a hard, wet kiss planted unexpectedly on your lips.

Words: A.D. Amorosi

November 18, 2022

GloRilla
Anyways, Life’s Great…
CMG/INTERSCOPE

This summer, at JAY-Z’s annual Made in America Festival, I had the opportunity of seeing husky-voiced Memphis rapper GloRilla and her team of matching cheerleader-outfitted dancers perform. On this sun-blazing, hottest of Philadelphia afternoons, Glo & co. twerked, middle-finger-wagged, and ripped their way through the summer’s most ardent rap anthem “F.N.F. (Let’s Go)”—a favorite of Cardi B’s—among an 808-pounding, too-short-set that concluded with her TikTok-only cover of Hova’s “99 Problems” that’s since informed her new track “Blessed.” In, out, and done, they were one of the fest’s hottest acts, beyond sun and sweat, and all you kept thinking was how much GloRilla kept you wanting more.

Hearing Anyways, Life’s Great… holds a similar effect, as its no-fat, all-funk track list is like a hard, wet kiss planted unexpectedly on your lips—you want more, immediately, after the EP’s nine tracks are spun. Glo’s steamy collab with Hitkidd, “F.N.F.,” is here in case you missed it all summer, as is the rough-ride of the Cardi-assisted “Tomorrow 2.” So far, so good.

After that, the NikiPooh-collab “Get That Money” and “Unh Unh” are decent, Memphis-y soundalikes, which leaves the spare-as-a-skeleton “Blessed,” the juke-and-jiving “Nut Quick,” the haunting and naggingly contagious “No More Love,” and the soulfully confessional “Out Loud Thinking” to do the rapper’s heaviest lifting. Through impatient throbbing and irresistibly subtle chord shifts (thanks to producers AYOKXNZO & Kalabasas) GloRilla does her strong-friend best on the latter track, cutting through the haze with bars such as “Money come and go so fast, I blow it like a bubble / These bitches are counterfeit, they ain’t a hundred.” 

From the cocksure interpolation of “Blessed” to the more vulnerable “No More Love,” GloRilla shows that she has more up her sleeve than the racy, racing “Let’s Go”—how much more will be better left to her debut full-length to tell. For now, however, here’s that hard, wet kiss.