Moneybagg Yo

When he was a teenager, Moneybagg Yo (born Demario DeWayne White Jr in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1991) dropped out of high school to help his mother feed his sisters, scraping together whatever money was left for studio time. In the 2010s, he became one of the more prolific and independently minded rappers of his class, turning out as many as five mixtapes a year, often without singles or big-name features—a self-sufficiency that made his breakthrough feel all the more earned. After debuting in 2012, he hit his stride a few years later with a string of releases that combined thick, slurry trap with street-seasoned gospel and a colourful sense of wordplay. In 2018 he released his first official album, RESET, with appearances from Future, J. Cole and Jeremih, and followed it with a flurry of LPs over the next few years, including the reflective Time Served and A Gangsta’s Pain. 2024’s SPEAK NOW was a reinvention of sorts, with the rapper fixing his gaze more on pleasure, less on pain.