Sterl Gotti  

Sterl Gotti

On his 2018 breakout single “Jungle Baby,” Detroit upstart Sterl Gotti melodizes over the trials and tribulations of being a product of the gritty Motor City. That truth in his music has become the now 21- year-old’s trademark, as his goal is to bring the spirit of Motown back into the new wave of Hip-Hop, with heartfelt hymns about street life. With his new project Urban Hero in heavy rotation and big plans for the year ahead, Sterl Gotti is just getting warmed up. Growing up in Detroit, life was far from perfect for young Sterl, but he made it work. “Detroit wasn’t the best place, of course,” he says, “but I had my mom and dad and I played basketball.” Music was always a part of his life, having grown up just a few blocks away from the hub of Motown, Hitsville U.S.A. He also came from a musically inclined family and would immediately hum the notes on key to songs he would hear, eventually moving over to playing instruments. “In middle school I played the trumpet, drums, and bass guitar,” he remembers, but basketball was at the forefront of his career aspirations to start. For years, basketball was his life, but priorities changed. Eventually, Sterl began dabbling in the streets, until he made a game-changing decision at 17 to leave that all behind and pursue music as his career. He began cutting songs and dropping them gradually over YouTube, pairing them with visuals filmed from around the way. His sound always lived at the intersection of Trap and Soul, as his rap influences vary from PNB Rock, A Boogie, and Lil Durk but are smoothed out by his love of the Motown greats. His goal from the start was to make songs that reflected that balance. The real traction started with the track “Jungle Baby” in 2018, where he details life in Detroit and aspirations of the glow up. The song circulated fast, as Sterl gained steam thanks to the music video which cracked well over 600k in views. He cut his first mixtape, Jungle Baby Vol. 1 that same year, and kept feeding the streets with more heat, tempering his music with building a strong social media presence over Instagram. He caught the attention of Grammy nominated producer Pooh Beatz (Jack Harlow, Da Baby, Nicki Minaj). “He’s a different kind of artist,” Pooh says of Sterl. “He just has it, that superstar mentality. Everyone can see it.”

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