Moneybagg Yo is one of the hottest artists coming out of Memphis.
His most recent album, A Gangsta’s Pain, went number one on Billboard when it dropped back in April
and sold over 110,000 copies in the first week. But behind Moneybagg Yo’s success is a dark past
that includes allegations that the rapper switched up on his own gang to achieve fame and success.
Let’s take a closer look at the rise and career of Moneybagg Yo and how he got to where he’s at.
Moneybagg Yo is from South Memphis, an area known for crime and violence.
He is the cousin of Crunchy Black from the legendary Three 6ix Mafia
and was well known in the city before rapping.
He was raised by a single mother who struggled to put food on the table,
so the rapper got sucked into the street life from an early age.
He dropped out of high school around age 15
and took to hustling full time to support himself. He had his first child around that time,
so he had to find a way to put food on the table and back then, rap was just a dream.
But the street life would catch up to him quickly and in 2011, someone tried to take
his life while he was at a family picnic. The shooters knew where he would be
because the event was something his family did every August. Luckily, he wasn’t hit,
but he did end up getting arrested and his entire family saw the kind of life that he was living.
This incident inspired him to hustle even harder with his music and he dropped his first official
track F U Pay Me later that year. He started focusing more on his music
and would take the street money and invest it in studio time and music videos.
He started dropping mixtapes every year including From da Block 2 da Booth, October 20th,
and Relentless. But he started to see success with his 2015 mixtape Federal, which was full
of hood anthems that gained him the respect of the city. He followed up a few months later
with Federal Reloaded, which was released on his very own record label Bread Gang Entertainment.
He started getting booked for shows and making real money off music,
so he decided to go even harder. His music started spreading outside of Memphis
to other cities in the South and Midwest and he was on his way to becoming a major star.
But even though he was starting to make some money from music, he still had one foot in the streets.
In March 2016, he hosted a release party for his
next project at the Maserati Club on Highway 70 in Mason, Tennessee,
only to have it raided by the cops. Police confiscated 10 loaded guns,
a bulletproof vest, cash, and drugs. Twenty-eight people were arrested in the raid,
some of which were affiliated with gangs like the Bloods, Crips, GDs, and Vice lords.
A crime alert now from Tipton County. Drugs, guns, and gangs are off the streets
tonight after a major law enforcement operation WREG's Michael Cuándo reports this all went down
at a concert for a Memphis rapper held in Mason at a place called the Maserati Club
A lifestyle of crime the deputies say led to 28 people being locked up on Sunday
after law enforcement barged into Club Maserati off of highway 70
Moneybagg was quickly learning that running the streets while
trying to start a legal business was not a good idea.
But at that time, he hadn’t built a big enough name for himself to make it off rap alone.
Not long after that, one of his close friends ELO was killed.
ELO was one of the main people who encouraged him to start rapping and leave the streets alone,
so it was a major loss to Moneybagg as he was getting close to finally achieving his dreams.
ELO wasn’t the first homie he lost to the streets, as his man Sleepy was also killed not long before.
These back-to-back losses convinced Moneybagg that he had to continue grinding
and he would name his next project ELO (Everybody Lives On) after his dead homie.
But, his hustle would start to pay off and he would attract
the attention of Nless Entertainment,
a label, and marketing company that would help him promote his next project
All Gas No Brakes. This helped put his music on the radar of Yo Gotti,
who was one of Moneybagg’s biggest inspirations when he was coming up.
But even though Moneybagg was attracting the attention of one of his musical heroes,
he didn’t get starstruck and sign right away. He and Gotti would form a relationship first
and build up genuine trust between them, before Moneybagg would officially sign to CMG.
This brought Moneybagg to a new level in his career,
as CMG wasn’t just well known in Memphis,
they were an international brand with connections at the highest levels of the industry.
It seemed like things were finally starting to take off for Moneybagg
and he could finally leave the streets alone and focus on music full time.
But just because he had made it out the hood, doesn’t mean he was safe from street politics.
Many people in his city started to talk down on him
for signing to Yo Gotti, a rapper from North Memphis.
The north and south sides of the city are known to beef with each other.
Memphis is a city well known for gangbanging,
with nearly every large gang in America having a presence.
Crews from the North tend to beef with those from the South,
so Moneybagg signing to an artist from the other side was a major violation of the street code.
But Moneybagg took the risk of going against his own hood to secure a better life,
because he was tired of all the beefing and street drama.
He says signing to CMG was a way to finally leave it alone for good
and create a better life for himself.
So he signed on the dotted line, even if it turned his hood against him.
After signing to CMG, he had to leave the city and
would return only to visit family and take care of business.
He was already on his way to being a major star, so there was no reason for
him to return to his old hood, where he knew there would be problems. But Moneybagg would
get sucked right back into the drama after one of his old friends accused him of selling out.
In 2020, a recording was released to the internet of a prison inmate named Stupid Duke
claiming that Moneybagg was a sell-out and that he could never come back to his hood.
So what's really going on with you and MoneyBagg? Uh MoneyBagg calls me rarely you know,
it's for every smoke for life, you know he did a song with DQ
one of the homeboys, he got his face on the TV cover
[unintelligible]
what he did at Paris Hilton you can't ever come back bro bro
[unintelligible]
You know It's forever it's something that aint never gonna stop
So was he Young Mob from the begining?
yeah he was Young Mob ***** from the begining
He got his chains on
Yeah he Young Mob he from the neighborhood, orginally
Stupid Duke and Moneybagg grew up together and used to be a part of a crew called Young Mob
before he was famous. But after Moneybagg started blowing up and
getting the world's attention, he switched up and forgot all about his day one homies.
Duke said that instead he cliqued up with the opps and left all his old friends back in the trenches.
That's why he can never come back to the city and it’s on sight if ever tries to return.
Moneybagg has defended his decision to sign to CMG and leave Memphis by stating that the issues
between North and South Memphis is more of a rivalry than real beef. No one from CMG ever
murked or disrespected anyone from his old crew, it’s just that the two sides have a history of not
liking each other. It’s not like he jumped ship to go break bread with people who killed his homies,
he just saw an opportunity to get away from the streets and took it.
Sounds pretty reasonable when he broke it down like that.
Only thing is that Moneybagg wasn’t entirely telling the truth.
Back in 2010, Yo Gotti and two others surrendered themselves
to police after being involved in a shooting that took place in the parking lot of Level 2 Nightclub
on Thanksgiving weekend. The shooting started after a verbal altercation between Yo Gotti
and another Memphis rapper named OG Boo Dirty and six people ended up getting shot. As it
turns out, OG Boo Dirty is from South Memphis and grew up with Moneybagg Yo. He also happens to be
Stupid Duke’s brother, which is why he felt the need to air out Moneybagg after he blew up.
So, the beef did go a little deeper than just North vs South. Blood had been spilled and it was
clear that Young Mob didn’t rock with CMG and vice versa.
There is even a video from back in 2013,
called Get Em G by OG Boo Dirty that is a Yo Gotti diss.
Moneybagg can be seen in the background,
proving that he was well aware that there was tension between his hood and CMG.
After all this came to light, other dudes from Moneybagg’s hood started dissing the rapper and
called him a sellout. This prompted Moneybagg to release a track called Thinking Out Loud in 2020,
where he addresses the situation. On the track he claims he never had any bad intentions,
but if his people feel a type of way: it is what it is.
He even suggests that he sent Stupid Duke some money
right before he started talking to the media and he was really doing it all for the clout.
If that wasn’t enough, a dude by the name of HD White who claims to be the rapper’s dad
also took to the internet to accuse his son of selling out. He posted a picture
of himself and Moneybagg back in the day, hanging out with his old crew,
along with the caption “Before the money when everything was cool now he don’t know us no more”.
He also followed up with another post where he says “ yo people will watch
you struggle go help somebody would never help them if the shoes on the other foot
In than say you did wish me happy birthday **** you and your birthday”
He’s referring to a Moneybagg Yo song where the rapper says “My daddy called me on my
birthday // Didn’t even tell me, he just asked me for some cake” It’s also worth pointing out
that HD White is also a rapper and has never been featured on a Moneybagg Yo song or vice versa.
It does seem pretty whack that Moneybagg would blow up and then leave his day ones behind.
But then again, you don’t know their relationship. Maybe they were trying to hold him back
and weren’t supportive of his career, so he had to cut ties to better his own life.
Then once he blew up, they tried to join in the success and he just wasn’t with it.
For now, the beef has mostly stayed on the internet and hasn’t escalated to real violence.
But, in September 2020, someone may have tried to shoot at him.
He was standing outside the Aria Resort and Casino in Las Vegas after celebrating his birthday
when shots were fired in his direction and one of his girlfriend’s homegirls was grazed by a bullet.
Breaking news overnight a shooting outside the Aria police say a group of people near the valet
got into an argument at least one person fired some shots maybe into the air one woman though
was injured she was taken to the hospital later sent home police say the person who fired the
shots is not in custody the shooting is still under investigation by the way this is the second
shooting on the strip in less than a week saturday two people were hurt after a shooting at the Paris
Moneybagg denied that he was the target of the shooting, but it does seem suspicious.
It seems like as long as Moneybagg stays out of Memphis and doesn’t add gas to the fire,
there isn’t much his old crew can do to get to him. He’s now a platinum-selling artist with a number one album
and has plenty of money to hire armed security. Although Stupid Duke was released
from prison earlier this year and with a name like that you know he has to be a savage.
So, whether he’ll attempt to make a move on his former friend or let the past be the past is yet to be seen.
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