21 February 9-15, 2023 miaminewtimes.com | browardpalmbeach.com New Times | Contents | Letters | news | night+Day | CuLture | Cafe | Music | miaminewtimes.com MIAMI NEW TIMES | CONTENTS | LETTERS | RIPTIDE | METRO | NIGHT+DAY | STAGE | ART | FILM | CAFE | MUSIC | West Memphis Mover Moneybagg Yo protégé YTB Fatt is ready to take the hip-hop world by storm. BY DAVID ROLLAND I t’s a sleepy weeknight in January, and in midtown Miami, only a handful of res- taurants are still open at 10 p.m. For the most part, the area’s a ghost town. A man out with his dogs for a late- night walk looks bewildered at the scene un- folding outside the Mediterranean restaurant Maü. At the entrance, a large man checks the credentials of anyone trying to pass through as though he’s guarding the party of the year. Past security, a few dozen people wait for a party to start. A heavyweight boxing con- tender, a Jamaican dancehall singer, and a casting agent for a reality show are among the small crowd gathered. There’s a three-course menu meal teasing the invitees. Dinner, ac- cording to the invita- tion, starts at 8, but no one’s eating until the guest of honor arrives. The man of the evening’s face is im- printed in color on the napkins at the table setting, but not many people beyond the most diehard of West Memphis hip-hop fans could possibly recog- nize it. It belongs to YTB Fatt, and he’s ready to take his new home base of Miami and the rest of the world by storm. This hip-hop version of a debutante ball is being thrown by the wildly successful rapper Moneybagg Yo, whose album, 2021’s A Gang- sta’s Pain, topped the Billboard 200 chart. Bread Gang, Moneybagg’s label, is hosting the party to formally announce its signing of YTB Fatt. It also serves as an opportunity to screen YTB Fatt’s new video “I Told You That,” where the 21-year-old spits verses while holding wads of cash and bloodying his dia- mond necklace while dismembering some- one off-screen with an ax. Speaking with New Times, YTB Fatt comes across as more humble and polite than the rap persona in his songs and video — almost a Southern gentleman peppering all his answers with “sirs.” His recent move to Florida still has him smitten with Miami. He relocated to the Magic City in October along with the rest of Moneybagg Yo’s inner circle. “I used to watch YouTube videos of Mi- ami,” he says. “I’d see Young Thug and Bird- man on a yacht, and Miami is really like that. Every day there is something.” Miami is a world away from West Mem- phis, located in Arkansas, across the Missis- sippi River from the city in Tennessee. “Miami is a lot faster. Memphis is slower. It was easier for me to find myself in trouble,” YTB Fatt says of his upbringing. Admitting that my only knowledge of con- temporary Memphis is from 2005’s Hustle & Flow, a flick that came out when YTB Fatt was a toddler, he doesn’t hesitate to chime in. “That movie had a big impact on Memphis,” he says. “People reenact scenes from it to this day. The TikTok crowd goes crazy for it.” YTB Fatt paints a childhood for himself out of a gritty movie. The YTB stands for “Young Track Boy.” “It comes from running track. We running games,” he adds. “My name used to be Fat Boy, but I took boy out of that name.” He only started rapping in 2019. Before that, he found himself gambling — a lot. “Throwing dice,” he clarifies. “I was ad- dicted. I’d have [$3,000] or $4,000 or [$5,000] or $6,000. I’d be betting on $100 throws.” Now he puts that dedication into his music career rather than into games of chance, play- ing shows every opportunity he was getting back in Memphis. He built up enough of a name and reputation as a performer that he got on Moneybagg Yo’s radar. YTB says he’s trying to suck in as much knowledge from his mentor as possible. “Moneybagg is so locked in. Man get a $10 million check, and he still go in the studio,” he says. “He don’t go anywhere else. Everything comes to him, and he in the studio working.” YTB is also quickly learning how to navigate an industry that can quickly turn on you if you aren’t careful. “I’m learning how to treat my family,” he says. “How he do his people, that’s how I do my family. I scoop up everything. What I see from him, I do. Any mistake I make I figure it’s a lesson learned.” Even though he has spent the last few months in Miami, he hasn’t seen much of the city outside the studio. “I’m not too big on restaurants. I don’t like just sitting around,” he says. “Sometimes we’ll go out to [the strip club] Booby Trap. We live in the studio.” Despite him clocking overtime in the stu- dio, YTB says all his lyrics come up on the spot — there’s no preparation or writing. “You know how you make plans, you mess up? I walk in the studio without plans. I do what I do. I just rap and go. I don’t try hard. I go with the flow,” he explains. The spontaneity helps his productivity. “I Told You That” is the first of many songs and videos he’s planning to release in the near fu- ture, and he says he’s sitting on two finished projects. “I did an eight-song EP in one night in the studio. Every song I did could have been my first single. When we shot the video for ‘I Told You That,’ I was like, ‘This gots to come out first.’ Now I’m ready for the next song to drop. We gonna have a video every week for seven weeks straight. We’re going to get this shit done. I got points to prove.” [email protected] ▼ Music YTB Fatt has spent most of his time in Miami in the studio. Bread Gang Entertainment photo “WE’RE GOING TO GET THIS SHIT DONE. I GOT POINTS TO PROVE.”
