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Money Man is made: How the Atlanta rapper became his own boss
Money Man may not have the name recognition as the latest SoundCloud sensation, you may not see him doing press tours nor flaunting in high-budget music videos, but if there’s something you can unequivocally count on when it comes to the Decatur native: he’s his own boss.
Money Man can drop music when he wants, how frequent as he likes, put as many songs as he wants on them, and not promote it if he doesn’t feel like.
He has his own marijuana farm, made hundreds of thousands in cryptocurrency and owns an imprint — all while being fairly new to the rap scene.
This past Tuesday he dropped his first release of 2019, a 25-track EP called Paranoia. Usually, albums aren’t that long without at least some promotion, but that’s what you can do when you call the shots, which is how the 32-year old has positioned himself in a short span of time, it feels.
The Atlanta rapper first made a splash on the mixtape circuit back in 2016 with his Black Circle series, with his most notable song being “How It Feel,” yet Money Man moves like someone who’s a 10-year vet in the industry.
Where most rappers upon getting into the game can’t articulate the simplest nuances of their deal — like Lil Yachty and Blueface for example — Money Man has been maneuvering, peeping game and making ground, the whole time.
After catching his buzz, Money Man signed with Cash Money Records in 2017 but eventually found it not conducive to how he wanted to go about his career. So the then-new rapper with a shiny new record deal, put up $250,000 to get out of that contract.
Most rappers wouldn’t be able to recognize they were in the midst of something that wasn’t for them, nonetheless be able to put the money up to buy themselves out, but that’s why Money Man has all the leverage now. He told HipHopWired in a 2018 interview,
“I just left because my [signing] wasn’t helping me. It wasn’t bettering my situation. Whatever I felt like they could do at the time, I could do myself. When they took my music down from streaming platforms, that was one of the final nails in the coffin because I was like ‘I gotta ahead and get myself out of this situation before it messes up my income.’ So I went ahead and rectified them and got everything back up and running,”
Chalk it up to his age or maybe just a different mindset, but he knew from the jump what needed to be done for him to be where he wanted. Now, he has free reign to also be a businessman.
Along with his marijuana business, his own imprint, The Black Circle, where he’s in charge of at least four artists outside of himself (Shooter, Gutta, J Rock, Juney). He told Pitchfork in a 2018 interview,
“I look at rap as a doorway to becoming a billionaire. It attracts different types of people for me to do business with, find out new things. It’s like holding a key right now.”
Nowadays Money Man deals with much smaller corps, partnering instead of signing to Republic Records for his label’s distribution needs. He also relies on a digital distribution like Tunecore and YouTube, which don’t need a major or indie distributor.
His vision as a businessman has truly already made him a boss, even without being mainstream yet.
Without a doubt, Money Man has the talent, mindset and hustle to become one of the hottest artists in the game. Those who already know respect him as one — it’s only a matter of time before the rest of the world catches up.