Moneybagg Yo on Making His New Album ‘Speak Now’ Feel Like a Movie With a Country Edge
Moneybagg Yo is feeling fired up. In June, the rapper hit the ground running with his first full-length album release in three years, Speak Now. In a new video interview with Rolling Stone, the rapper breaks down his goals for this new era of his career, venturing into the country world with Morgan Wallen on “Whiskey Whiskey” and the current spotlight shining on the Memphis rap scene.
“When you go to a theater, you don’t want to go see the same movie six, seven times,” Moneybagg explains. “So I feel like that’s where I’m at in my career. I gotta give y’all different movies to see every time. Every time you listen to me, it’s a difference, a new movie, a different vibe.”
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The rapper set the scene for Speak Now with the early singles “Bussin,” “Tryna Make Sure,” and most recently “Play Da Fool.” “I just wanted to let my fans know that this the vibe I’m on. Like I said, first impressions are everything when you playing something. The first thing you play is like, ‘Oh, this what we can expect.’ So I just wanted to deliver the energy.”
“Whiskey Whiskey” marked a major shift in that energy as the Memphis rapper ventured into Wallen’s country territory. “It was actually his song, he just gave it to me,” Moneybagg reveals. “It’s just unexpected. It’s a good song. I feel like it’s taking me somewhere else. I need to go there. I need to expand. I’m ready to expand, so tune in.”
He adds: “I just feel like this song is going to represent just Tennessee. This is what I’m aiming with. I’m not trying to, like, tap into nobody’s world or whatever that is. I’m just really collaborating with my man, with my friend, Morgan Wallen. And it just was a pleasure for him to do that.”
Moneybagg praises the wave of talent coming out of Memphis at the moment, including Blac Youngsta, Glorilla, Pooh Shiesty, and BlocBoy JB. But he’s quick to clarify that this isn’t a new trend — Memphis has always had the heat. “We always had waves,” he explains. “We got a lot of talent there, the world is just now seeing it. We’ve been had it.”
Part of Moneybagg’s role in maintaining that wave on his own part has been staying true to himself as an artist. “I’m a real time artist. I like to record when stuff really going on accurately in my life. That’s the mode I was in,” he says about creating Speak Now. “I feel like whatever I’m going through in a day or that week, or whatever pain I’m enduring, I just use it as an outlet. When I go in the studio, it’s more like a relief for me, because so much on my mind. I’m really just going in the studio to let it off, get it off, and get going.”
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