NLE Choppa aka Bryson LaShun Potts was born on November 1, 2002, to an African American father and Jamaican mother. He was raised in Southeast Memphis, Tennessee, in the Parkway Village area, and was also enrolled in Cordova High School where he played basketball. He began freestyling with childhood friends at the age of 15 and started taking music seriously at 16. His manager is his mother, Angela Potts, who has been managing him since he started expressing an interest in rap music career. He released his first song, “No Love Anthem”, in March 2018 under the name YNR Choppa. As a follow up he released his debut mixtape, No Love the Takeover. After the surge of popularity, he released his breakout single “Shotta Flow”. The video reached 10 million views in a month. The song entered the radio airplay charts in May 2019. The official remix, featuring Blueface and a Cole Bennett-directed music video, was released in June, shortly after the original song was certified platinum by the RIAA. He released the song’s sequel, “Shotta Flow 2”. The video received 20 million views within two months, prompting Carl Lamarre from Billboard to say that his “recent dominance has silenced any detractors”. It was around this time that it was reported that Choppa had sparked a bidding war between a handful of top record labels, with bids reaching a reported $3 million. He turned these offers down, from Republic Records, Interscope Records, Caroline, however, to instead sign with the independent distribution company, UnitedMasters including Neo Lechweny, while keeping his master recordings and publishing. In March, he released a new single called “Capo”, with the music video debuting on Worldstarhiphop. The future and Summer of 2024 looks very bright for NLE Choppa.
