Bryson Lashun Potts (born: November 1, 2002), known professionally as NLE Choppa is an American rapper known for his music.
Career[]
During a teenager, he would study on rapper Lil Wayne's lyricism and charisma, which had became an inspiration for him. While attending high school, he would use his energetic personality to freestyle on music. At the time, he says that he was in the dark place, so the only thing that would keep him going was visualizing himself on a concert one day.
Potts built a reputation on school for his skill on his freestyling. It would help when he first dropped his first songs on YouTube and SoundCloud. He would rap under the name of YNR CHOPPA (YNR standing for Young N Reckless), with his first releases titled "No Love" and "Freaky Anthem". Initially it wouldn't bring any traction towards his name, so he would keep on working on his style until there was something he was proud of. Potts would release a full-length mixtape on summer of 2018 titled, "No Love Takover". It didn't gain much traction but created a work ethic until music was all he thought. He would rename himself from YNR Choppa to NLE Choppa.
On December 2018, a group of Memphis rappers under the name Shotta Fam would release a song titled "No Chorus Pt 3", with the first verse being Potts himself. People would want to hear more from Potts with more music. He would release his song "Drip", being his first music video. With every new release, his views would skyrocket.
While, Potts would find a beat on YouTube knowing that would be his next hit song. He would ask his parents for $150 dollars so he can release it with the music video. When he finished it, he named it with the Jamaican term, known as "Shotta Flow". Released on January 10, 2019, gaining 20,000 views on the first night. The song's music video skyrocketed from 10,000 views to 10 million views. Record labels and rap moguls would try and sign the rapper after its rise. Despite getting offers for millions of dollars, Potts would turned down everything going on his way, but would go with a partnership with United Masters. He would be the hottest rapper in the game and would go on a world tour opening for Juice WRLD and Ski Mask the Slump God.
Although being on the rise, he was still criticized for having a similar style to rapper YoungBoy Never Broke Again. One of the smartest maintains he would do to keep his fans waiting was release a series to Shotta Flow. When the hype for Shotta Flow would slow down, he would release Part 2 and brand himself over the trend. Once Part 2's hype started to slow down, he released a remix with rapper Blueface alongside with a music video from Lyrical Lemonade. Repeating this process kept his name rising to fame around 2019. His singles would rise to millions of views almost a year that he would release his first EP, "Cottonwood".
Potts released his debut studio album "Top Shotta" on August 2020, selling over 500,000 copies and go gold once again. Shortly after, he would have a change of heart and try to change his whole identity to stop rapping about violence for entirety, spread positivity and open a health and wellness shop to sell various products. He would create a YouTube channel called Awakened Choppa. Many thought this change would have a falloff for the rapper because he wasn't going to deliver the same energy people know and love him for.
He would release his mixtape "From Dark to Light" on the same year in November, showcasing his change of heart, having positive reviews. He still made it in the XXL Freshman list to gain popularity. He would then start to come back with the same energy his fans fell in love with. He already proved his point that no matter what type of music or image he would portray, his fans would still fall in love with it.
On 2022, Potts release his mixtape "Me vs. Me" reverting back to his 2019 self that made him famous, including the lead single "Shotta Flow 6", which had him trending at #2 on YouTube. On 2023, he released his album "Cottonwood 2", a sequel to his first EP from 2019, "Cottonwood", following up singles he released before the album's, "MO UP FRONT", "DO IT AGAIN" with 2Rare, "AIN'T GONNA ANSWER" with Lil Wayne, and so on.
Channel[]
Potts created his YouTube channel on January 27, 2018 and uploaded his first video on February 28, 2018, showing the song "Nolove Anthem". His most popular video is currently the music video to "Walk Em Down" (featuring Roddy Ricch) with 271.6 million+ views as of April 2023.
Potts created his other channel named "Awakened Choppa" on August 31, 2020. It is his personal channel where he does video blogs (specifically vlogs) about his personal life and meeting up with famous content creators like JiDion, Kai Cenat and others.
Trivia[]
- Potts' channel Awakened Choppa was created a day before his mixtape "From Dark To Light" released.
- Potts is known for the songs "Walk Em Down" (featuring Roddy Ricch), "Shotta Flow", "Shotta Flow" (remix featuring Blueface)", and others.
- Potts currently has 2.2 billion+ YouTube views as of April 2023.