A person out along with his canines for a late-night stroll seems to be bewildered on the scene unfolding exterior the Mediterranean restaurant Maü. At the doorway, a big man checks the credentials of anybody attempting to move by means of as if he is guarding the social gathering of the 12 months.
Past safety, a number of dozen folks anticipate a celebration to begin. A heavyweight boxing contender, a Jamaican dancehall singer, and a casting agent for a actuality present are among the many small crowd gathered. There’s a three-course menu meal teasing the invitees. Dinner, in line with the invitation, begins at 8, however nobody’s consuming till the visitor of honor arrives.
The man of the night’s face is imprinted in shade on the napkins on the desk setting, however not many individuals past probably the most diehard of West Memphis hip-hop followers might probably acknowledge it. It belongs to YTB Fatt, and he is able to take his new house base of Miami and the remainder of the world by storm.
This hip-hop model of a debutante ball is being thrown by the wildly profitable rapper Moneybagg Yo, whose album, 2021’s A Gangsta’s Pain, topped the Billboard 200 chart. Bread Gang, Moneybagg’s label, is internet hosting the social gathering to formally announce its signing of YTB Fatt. It additionally serves as a possibility to display screen YTB Fatt’s new video “I Told You That,” the place the 21-year-old spits verses whereas holding wads of money and bloodying his diamond necklace whereas dismembering somebody off-screen with an ax.
Speaking with Miami New Times, YTB Fatt comes throughout as extra humble and well mannered than the rap persona in his songs and video — virtually a Southern gentleman peppering all his solutions with “sirs.” His latest transfer to Florida nonetheless has him smitten with Miami. He relocated to the Magic City in October together with the remainder of Moneybagg Yo’s inside circle.
“I used to observe YouTube movies of Miami,” he says. “I’d see Young Thug and Birdman on a yacht, and Miami is admittedly like that. Every day there’s something.”
Miami is a world away from West Memphis, positioned in Arkansas, throughout the Mississippi River from the town in Tennessee.
“Miami is so much quicker. Memphis is slower. It was simpler for me to search out myself in hassle,” YTB Fatt says of his upbringing.
Admitting that my solely data of up to date Memphis is from 2005’s Hustle & Flow, a flick that got here out when YTB Fatt was a toddler, he does not hesitate to chime in.
“That film had a big effect on Memphis,” he says. “People reenact scenes from it to this present day. The TikTok crowd goes loopy for it.”
YTB Fatt paints a childhood for himself out of a gritty film. The YTB stands for “Young Track Boy.” “It comes from working monitor. We working video games,” he provides. “My title was once Fat Boy, however I took boy out of that title.”
He solely began rapping in 2019. Before that, he discovered himself playing — so much. “Throwing cube,” he clarifies. “I used to be addicted. I’d have [$3,000] or $4,000 or [$5,000] or $6,000. I’d be betting on $100 throws.”
Now he places that dedication into his music profession reasonably than into video games of likelihood, enjoying reveals each alternative he was getting again in Memphis. He constructed up sufficient of a reputation and fame as a performer that he obtained on Moneybagg Yo’s radar. YTB says he is attempting to suck in as a lot data from his mentor as doable.
“Moneybagg is so locked in. Man get a $10 million test, and he nonetheless go within the studio,” he says. “He do not go wherever else. Everything involves him, and he within the studio working.”
YTB can also be shortly studying easy methods to navigate an trade that may shortly activate you if you happen to aren’t cautious. “I’m studying easy methods to deal with my household,” he says. “How he do his folks, that is how I do my household. I scoop up all the things. What I see from him, I do. Any mistake I make I determine it is a lesson realized.”
Even although he has spent the previous few months in Miami, he hasn’t seen a lot of the town exterior the studio. “I’m not too large on eating places. I do not like simply sitting round,” he says. “Sometimes we’ll exit to [the strip club] Booby Trap. We dwell within the studio.”
Despite him clocking extra time within the studio, YTB says all his lyrics come up on the spot — there isn’t any preparation or writing. “You understand how you make plans, you mess up? I stroll within the studio with out plans. I do what I do. I simply rap and go. I do not attempt onerous. I glide,” he explains.
The spontaneity helps his productiveness. “I Told You That” is the primary of many songs and movies he is planning to launch within the close to future, and he says he is sitting on two completed tasks.
“I did an eight-song EP in a single night time within the studio. Every tune I did might have been my first single. When we shot the video for ‘I Told You That,’ I used to be like, ‘This gots to come back out first.’ Now I’m prepared for the following tune to drop. We gonna have a video each week for seven weeks straight. We’re going to get this shit completed. I obtained factors to show.”