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Yo Gotti
Biography
Yo Gotti is among the many hardcore rappers who came out of hip-hop's Dirty South school in the late '90s. He is also one of the hip-hoppers who derives part of his stage name from the late New York mafioso John Gotti; others have included Big Gotti, Don Gotti, Juan Gotti, Bazooka Joe Gotti, and Irv Gotti. Not all Dirty South recordings are gangsta rap, but Yo Gotti has favored the thugged-out gangsta side of the Dirty South; and he gets his inspiration from both Southern and non-Southern rappers. Master P and his New Orleans-based No Limit posse are an influence; so are N.W.A., Dr. Dre, and the late Tupac Shakur. Gotti's more sexually explicit lyrics also owe something to Oakland native Too Short, who was never a gangsta rapper but did a lot to popularize X-rated rap lyrics. Yo Gotti, however, isn't from the West Coast any more than he is from New Orleans; his stomping ground is Memphis, the city that gave us the Three 6 Mafia, Gangsta Blac, Eightball & MJG, Kingpin Skinny Pimp, and quite a few other Dirty South artists. When Gotti boasts that he is "straight from the North," he doesn't mean the northern part of the United States; he means the northern part of Memphis, where he lived in the infamous, crime-ridden Ridge Crest housing projects.
Selected Discography