MUSIC

Moneybagg Yo

Repping Memphis at the top of the charts and helping local schools.

It was exactly three years ago that Zandria Robinson wrote in the Memphis Flyer about Moneybagg Yo’s triumphant pop-up show at Minglewood Hall, celebrating the release of his o cial debut, Federal 3x.  e COURTESY TRAVIS WHITESIDE sellout crowd made for a frenetic, exhilarating night, celebrating both the headliner and Yo Gotti’s Collective Music Group (CMG) organization. By then, of course, Moneybagg Yo had already built up plenty of momentum since the release of his  rst mixtape, 2 Federal, in 2016. As

Robinson wrote, the show “was a signal of what is to come from CMG.

Moneybagg Yo, like CMG compatriot

Blac Youngsta, is part of a second generation of the label’s trap artists, men chronicling loss, trauma, gun violence, and intimacy live from the underground drug economy.

Yo, however, pushes the mechanics and intricacies of the trap to the background, marshaling a heavy but nimble  ow.”  at  ow has since served him well, and in January of this year he signed with powerhouse entertainment agency Roc Nation, Jay-Z’s company, which also represents Rihanna,

Big Sean, DJ Khaled, Fabolous, Jim

Jones, Lil Uzi Vert, Mariah Carey,

Rapsody, Jaden Smith, and Yo Gotti himself. Simultaneously with that announcement, the artist dropped his third album, Time Served, through

Roc Nation, CMG, Bread Gang

Entertainment, N-Less Entertainment, and Interscope Records. With collaborators like Lil Baby, Blac

Youngsta, Future, DaBaby, Summer

Walker, Fredo Bang, and Megan  ee

Stallion, it made a major impact, peaking at No. 3 in the Billboard 200.

It’s worth noting that Moneybagg

Yo instilled the new album with the spirit of Memphis.  e video for the original release’s opening track, “Speak 4 Em,” begins with footage of the Bass

Pro Shop Pyramid, and some distinctly

Memphis-looking porches. Production on “U Played” is by hometown hero Tay

Keith. Devin Steel, a major hip-hop DJ and programmer in the city for over 20 years, points out the unique connection that Moneybagg Yo, born Demario

DeWayne White Jr. in South Memphis, has maintained with his hometown.

“He does a lot of things for the city,” says Steel. “He just made a huge donation to the Shelby County Schools — all these masks and PPE and hand sanitizers — which was cool. He technically lives between here, Atlanta, and Miami. But at the same time, he’s still very much tuned into what’s going on in the city. He’s de nitely plugged in. I would still consider him a Memphis artist, de nitely in the top two or three.”

In donating 10,000 masks to SCS, just two weeks ago, the star used the overnight success of Time Served to help Memphis weather the coronavirus. “ is pandemic has negatively a ected so many lives,” said Moneybagg Yo in a press release, “but it has also shown that there is power in numbers, and that no matter who you are you can bring positive change. I hope that these masks play a part in keeping our children and teachers safe as we continue to  nd more ways that we can assist.”

Meanwhile, the album has continued to have legs through the era of quarantine, culminating in the July release of the extended-length Time Served Deluxe as a complete visual album.  ough some of the videos had been released since January, the visual album’s capstone was a new video for “Protect Da Brand,” featuring DaBaby, which has had over 2.7 million views.

As Steel points out, the visual album has become more and more common in recent years. In the case of Moneybagg Yo and others, it’s a way “to go back in and  gure out what they can do to re-engage people. He’s one of these guys that shoots all of these videos constantly, so why not?”  e trend is more important now than ever, Steel notes. “People

Moneybagg Yo

are connected to their phones. Usage is way up. And people are always looking for something new. Anything but the news. Moneybagg Yo is a good example of someone who’s taken something and run with it, just because he has that captive audience.  ey’re gonna watch every one of those videos.”