Snootie WILD

“After prison, the reality of my life was crazy trying to figure out what my next move was going to be, especially knowing I’ve got kids,” he says. “It was a struggle, and you lose hope fast, but my kids and my family kept me going.” Snootie started investing his time and money into music. After the death of his father, Snootie dropped the ‘Lil’ and added the Wild to highlight his personality. He took on every challenge as he crafted songs and showed up to open mics, and finally the track “Yayo” broke through. Fellow local legend Yo Gotti heard the song, signed Snootie to his CMG imprint, and the rest, as they say, is history. “Yayo took me to a whole other level in my life, which in turn helped me to change people’s lives,” Snootie says of the hit single. “It was a great movement for giving people out of my city some hope that they could do anything. It helped change my life.” Both Snootie’s Chapter One mixtape and Go Mode EP, which was released in late 2014 via CMG/Epic, showcased a burgeoning young artist with dreams of the bigger picture. However, Ain’t No Stoppin Me kicks that up a notch. “Me talking about motivation so much comes from my struggle and experiencing bad things in my life,” he says. “Sometimes you can lose hope, so me coming from a bad situation to a better one, leaves me no choice but to speak out and speak the truth. It doesn’t matter where you’re at or what you’re going through. You can always get yourself out of it and live life how you want to live it.” Snootie has already teased some tracks on stage at SXSW 2015, warming audiences up for the main event, but on stage is where Snootie feels closest to his fans. “The people are the ones that listen to the music. They want to know that the person making that music is real,” he adds. “There are a lot of imposters out there. I have to be out there with the people. I owe them that.” In a world where many forget the meaning of gratitude, Snootie Wild is thankful for every day out of his past. The man who said “the projects weren’t big enough for me” is now rocking on stages from coast-to-coast and dropping audible gems into the ears of non-believers. While Ain’t No Stoppin Me will be a game changer, it’s just the warm-up for Snootie Wild. His stardom is just beginning. “Once they hear me and see me and really get the facts on where I come from,” Snootie says, “they gonna learn that I’m a young man that came from nothing in these streets — that had all the hope of being something, but just never had anything to gravitate towards trying to get there. God sent him a line and got him out of those projects. And here I am.”