As a rapper, Gotti is workmanlike in his delivery: His voice has a gritty heft to it, and his verses are built methodically, like brick walls. It’s no accident, either, that Gotti spent last summer opening for Drake and Lil Wayne on their tour: He provided a kind of credibility that balanced out the YMCMB stars’ pop side. When he lent a verse to fellow Memphis rapper Snootie Wild’s local hit “Yayo,” it helped blow that song up on rap radio (Snootie Wild later signed to Gotti’s CMG imprint). Along with Boosie, T.I., and Bun B, he has become part of Southern rap’s semi-old guard of street-savvy regional stars. Gotti is the guy who rappers get on their tracks for a stamp of approval: approval from the South, from the streets, from the old guard-or, likely, all three. But it’s not so much these singles that make Gotti beloved as it is his presence, which is both supremely grounded and gently intimidating. In 2013, he had another chart hit with “Act Right,” featuring Young Jeezy and YG. After a string of independent albums and amid a torrid parade of bad label situations, Yo Gotti scored a breakout hit in 2009 with his song “5 Star,” which went gold and cracked the Billboard Hot 100. Through relentlessly releasing music and touring for a decade and a half, largely in the South’s overlooked mid-size cities, Yo Gotti has built a rock solid fan base on the strength of a no-nonsense approach to street rap that makes just the slightest concessions to the club. I’m not saying that Yo Gotti was trying to make a statement-I’m pretty sure he just needed a haircut and had a busy schedule for the weekend-but, all the same, it was immediately clear that here was someone who has figured out how to move through the world.Ĭoming from Memphis, a city whose contributions to hip-hop are often unfairly flattened out to the one time Three Six Mafia won an Oscar, Yo Gotti has had to move more deftly than many of his contemporaries, but he’s also turned his situation to his advantage. When I met him in the penthouse suite of the Midtown Manhattan hotel where he was staying for NBA All-Star Weekend, he was getting his hair cut, which is the kind of thing that mafia dons and billionaires do in movies as a power move for intimidating people who come into their offices.
Yo Gotti is 32, but he projects the serene assurance, dominating charisma, and veteran perspective of someone a decade older.
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