Moneybagg Yo
Some of the most evocative hip-hop of recent years has come courtesy of Moneybagg Yo, specifically the deep-voiced Memphis MC’s single “Wockesha” from the summer of 2021. The hook-heavy minor-key number, from his hit fourth LP A Gangsta’s Pain, chronicles his complicated relationship with lean, aka purple drank or sizzurp — a habit-forming codeine-and-soda concoction that, by any name, has cut short so many promising careers in the rap world.
No shortage of songs exist on this topic: Future’s “Dirty Sprite,” Lil Wayne’s “I Feel Like Dying” and 1990s Bluff City kingpins Three 6 Mafia’s “Sippin’ on Some Syrup” come to mind. (Bagg and longtime Three 6 hype man Crunchy Black are cousins.) “Wockesha,” however, adds two intriguing wrinkles. There are astute lyrics personifying lean as the other half of a toxic, codependent relationship: “One minute I’m done with you / The next one I be running back.” There’s also an intro cribbed from a 2009 interview with Wayne, whose struggles with codeine are well-documented.
The pathos of “Wockesha,” coupled with the workmanlike swagger of material like “Go!,” “Shottas (Lala)” and “Time Today,” catapulted A Gangsta’s Pain to the No. 1 spot on the all-genre Billboard 200 the week of its release. Bagg had been making music professionally for roughly a decade, drawing on his South Memphis roots and the influence of Southern rap forebears like Wayne, Jeezy and Boosie, and his three previous releases — like A Gangsta’s Pain, they were released via North Memphian Yo Gotti’s Interscope Records imprint CMG — all did well on the Billboard 200. But the sprawling 22-track set, expanded to 29 tracks with the A Gangsta’s Pain: Reloaded edition, is the sound of potential realized.
Today, the 31-year-old born DeMario DeWayne White Jr.’s permanent residence is in Atlanta. His troubled Tennessee home city, however — an environment where success can be both blessing and curse — is never far from his mind. The emotive title track from A Gangsta’s Pain puts this succinctly: “Bullets don’t discriminate, just had to remind you / No matter how you try to dodge the bullshit, it come find you.” Mere months after A Gangsta’s Pain topped the charts, 36-year-old Young Dolph — another key voice in contemporary Memphis hip-hop, a generous spirit and a second cousin to Chicago’s gone-before-his-time Juice WRLD — was gunned down, right in his hometown, not long after hinting at his own imminent retirement from the rap game.
In an extensive fall 2022 profile of Bagg, New York Times scribe Jon Caramanica shadowed the MC from his current ATL home base to his South Memphis stomping grounds. There he proudly toured Caramanica around property he’d recently purchased, targeted for a community center, paintball course and more. Even with a bulletproof SUV, vests and armed security detail in tow, Bagg never stopped looking over his shoulder. That recalled something Bagg had said five years prior in a Q&A with TMZ’s Raquel Harper, who’d asked about the differences between the two cities. “Atlanta stick together, but Memphis, there’s a lot of hate going on,” he said. “I just managed to make it out of it.”
To Bagg’s point about community, his list of collaborators includes Atlantans like Future, Lil Baby, Migos co-founder Quavo and the late local luminary Trouble. He’s also worked with plenty of Bluff City folks like Yo Gotti, Blac Youngsta and newcomer GloRilla, as well as major players from all over such as J. Cole, Freddie Gibbs, DJ Khaled and (naturally) Lil Wayne. Sunday, you’ve got a chance to catch Bagg squarely in his prime: His Larger Than Life Tour stops at Bridgestone Arena for his first Nashville headlining gig, which comes in support of his latest mixtape, the tightly wound Hard to Love. An array of opening acts includes Sexyy Red from St. Louis; Luh Tyler, a 17-year-old phenom out of Tallahassee, Fla.; and YTB Fatt, Finesse2Tymes and Big Boogie, who are all from (where else) Memphis.
