The Memphis MC made a splash during her VMA debut with a choreo-heavy performance.
GloRilla performs on stage during the 2024 MTV Video Music Awards at UBS Arena on Sept. 11, 2024 in Elmont, New York. Mike Coppola/Getty Images
GloRilla may have been new to the VMAs, but the Memphis-bred MC made a splashy debut at MTV awards show Wednesday (Sept. 11) with a tough-as-nails medley that proved she’d earned her four nominations and primo performance spot near the end of the three-hour telecast.
Dressed in a floor-length pinstriped black overcoat and matching baseball hat, the rapper opened with her crunk-inspired smash “Yeah Glo!,” which hit No. 28 on the Billboard Hot 100 earlier this year, while running up to No. 7 on the hot R&B/Hip-Hop songs chart and cracking the No. 1 spot on the Mainstream R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay tally.
With a crew of six black leather duster-clad dancers stomping circles around her, Glo spit the hard-hitting lyrics from the song that anchored her second mixtape, Ehhthang Ehhtang, before the lights went out and she flipped the script to dip into her other 2024 hit, “TGIF.” Stripping down to a black business-casual bikini with silver accents and necktie while her long blonde ponytail whipped around behind her, the MC turned the digital cubical farm behind her into a sweaty nightclub.
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Walking down the desklike catwalk with similarly dressed dancers pounding on the table, Glo turned all the way up while the women tossed funny money into the air. “Turnt up with my n—as/ Turnt up with my b—hes,” GloRilla rapped on the chorus that found Camila Cabello and Shaboozey lip-synching enthusiastically in the audience, as she put on a twerking clinic on the jam that pushed up to No. 2 on the R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay chart in July.
She even survived what appeared to be a near-wardrobe malfunction near the end of the medley that had a dancer re-hooking her bra as Glo smiled and struck a triumphant, joyous pose.
