A Gangsta’s Pain

Moneybagg Yo gets trapped in a delusion in his ominous “Wockesha” video. The song, which is an ode to his love-hate relationship with lean, portrays the purple drink as a woman with whom Moneybagg maintains an unhealthy infatuation, so the video makes that metaphor visual. “Wockesha” appears as a beautiful woman with purple hair accompanying Moneybagg on his daily activities, but as in Bill Watterson’s Calvin & Hobbes comic strip, where Moneybagg sees a gorgeous companion, other people just see a man with a toxic attachment to an inanimate object (portrayed here as a pair of giant floating styrofoam cups).

Containing an interpolation of The Notorious BIG’s “One More Chance” remix and a cameo appearance from Lil Wayne, who details his own tumultuous relationship with the drug that has nearly killed him multiple times over the years, “Wockesha” is a heart-wrenching look at the allure of an activity that has entrapped many of hip-hop’s finest, a la Beanie Sigel’s “Purple Rain” or Future’s “Codeine Crazy.” The Wayne intro is excerpted from the New Orleans rapper’s 2009 interview with Tim Westwood, although Wayne’s appearance in the video is new, with Wayne reprising the speech from his own studio.

The subject matter of “Wockesha” prompted Yo’s fellow Memphian NLE Choppa to reach out to him, encouraging him to replace lean with Choppa’s own brand of plant-based products. So far, it doesn’t appear that Moneybagg is all that interested. He recently performed the song at the BET Awards.

Watch the “Wockesha” video above.

A Gangsta’s Pain is out now on CMG and Interscope. Get it here.

In Moneybagg Yo’s breezy new “A Gangsta’s Pain” video, the Memphis native takes a break from promoting his new album of the same name to celebrate that album’s success. Not only was it his first album to reach No.1 on the Billboard albums chart, it did so twice, returning to the top spot just weeks later.

The video follows Moneybagg and his crew as they party in a fancy vacation home in the tropics, lounging in its pool, boating on a nearby body of water, and enjoying a big bag of green nuggets of you-know-what.

In addition to keeping his album rollout going, Moneybagg Yo also introduced the newest member of his Bread Gang crew on social media today. Not a lot is known about Tripstar at the moment, other than he’s also a Memphian and appears on the song “I Believe U” from A Gangsta’s Pain. Yo posted a video of the young, up-and-coming artists on his Instagram, writing, “AnyTime I Stamp Sum It’s Det, So If U Rock Wit Me And My Brand I Need Yall To Go Get In Tune Wit Da Newest Member.”

Watch Moneybagg Yo’s “A Gangsta’s Pain” video above.

A Gangsta’s Pain the album is out now on CMG/N-Less/Interscope Records. Get it here.

Prior to Sunday, only three albums had spent more than one week at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 in 2021. The first was Taylor Swift’s Evermore as it claimed the top spot twice in January. Next was Morgan Wallen’s Dangerous: The Album, which spent its first ten weeks dominating the charts after its debut in late January — the most in Billboard history. Nearly three months later, Justin Bieber’s Justice would land two nonconsecutive weeks atop the album charts. Now, Moneybagg Yo can add himself to this list, as his latest album, A Gangsta’s Pain, is back on top.

Just two weeks ago, the Memphis rapper’s project debuted at No. 1 thanks to a total of 110,000 album units in its first week. Two weeks later, it’s back on top thanks to 61,000 album units, a number comprised of 60,000 streaming equivalent album units. The album’s sales last week are the second-lowest number by a No. 1 album this year behind Taylor Swift’s Evermore, which posted 56,000 when it topped the chart in January. On top of that, this week’s Billboard 200 makes the first time in two months that no albums debuted in the top ten positions of the chart.

After A Gangsta’s Pain debuted at No. 1, Moneybagg shared a video for “Free Promo,” with Lil Durk and Polo G, which made for the fifth song from the album to receive the video treatment.

Moneybagg Yo’s newest album, A Gangsta’s Pain is the Memphis rapper’s third project in 15 months. After beginning 2020 with Time Served, he teamed up with fellow Memphian Blac Youngsta for their Code Red project which arrived later that summer. The quick releases play a decent role in what makes up Moneybagg Yo the artist. The new project is his tenth since the start of 2017. This consistency coupled with a steady improvement from project to project has brought the rapper a new cast of supporters as his artistry becomes more and more refined.

The frequency of Moneybagg’s releases could cause one to pose the question: is being too active a bad thing? Well, the answer to that is both yes and no. Yes, because one could imagine his growth and improvement making a bigger impression if full-length releases were a bit more spaced out. No, because the Memphis rapper has taken an incremental step upward with each project as they arrive. Prior efforts like Federal 3X and Heartless see an artist slowly figuring it out while later admitting to mistakes thanks to hindsight. Recent efforts like Time Served capture Moneybagg in a new tier while A Gangsta’s Pain sees him finding comfort in this zone while setting his eyes on the next level.

Ironically this new zone the Memphis native has stepped into finds him moving out of his comfort zone a bit. Displaying A Gangsta’s Pain means unearthing the emotions that one most likely ignored and gave a cold shoulder to when asked about. On multiple occasions, Moneybagg tones down the clang of his chains to let the sound of his heartbeat echo. From the intimacy behind “One Of Them Nights” with Jhene Aiko to the uncaged sensitivity on “Love It Here,” Moneybagg’s heart slowly thaws with the warmth of a ride-or-die companion. Backed the return of Future’s Hndrxx alter-ego, “Hard For The Next” notes that while love and its longevity may not be guaranteed, making the best of the present moment is a bar Moneybagg will reach for.

The pains and struggles of yesterday’s inflictions are also laid on wax throughout A Gangsta’s Pain. He questions life and the many let-downs he experienced through it all on “If Pain Was A Person.” His hurt is merely an emotion that rattles the brain and weighs on the heart, but personifying this emotion creates a one-sided discussion that allows Moneybagg to vent and get what he needs off his chest. Strong moments like these come on the heels of weaker ones and as the nostalgic keys of Ashanti’s “Foolish” play underneath a mellow bass, Moneybagg’s “Wockesha” admits to repeatedly succumbing to the toxic drink that always counters his attempt to push it away with a defeating punch like the one Kamaru Usman delivered in front of the world not too long ago.

In between the rain of emotion that flows on A Gangsta’s Pain, the thunder and flash of Moneybagg’s rap prowess arrive to balance out the album. It’s how the Memphis native best knows how to present himself and why many of his fans fell in love with his music. He accomplishes this through assertive raps laced with overt confidence about the man and rapper he’s grown into over the years. Moneybagg isn’t someone who’s done his people wrong, he tells us that on “Projects” with lines like, “If you ever gave your word, then you must stand on that,” adding, “Just jumped off a private, took ten black trucks to the projects.” The self-solidifying talk continues on “Certified Neptunes,” an effort supported by a cold hook from Pharrell that brings listeners back to his days as a Clipse sidekick. “If your loyalty don’t match mine, it ain’t sh*t wit’ you,” Moneybagg proclaims, detailing a simple quality that is foundational in his world, and one that serves as the root of his gangsta’s pain when broken.

When you take a look into the past, it’s hard to deny the progress Moneybagg has made in his career, especially the last five years he’s spent inching closer and closer to the mainstream spotlight. A Gangsta’s Pain is the Memphis native’s most diverse project to date thanks to a deeper and more concise dive into the personal side of his life as well as tapping into production his fans had yet to hear him with him, like The Neptunes for example. A slight critique of the project would be its length as a 22-track — 21 songs and an interlude — effort will often be a bit of drag to listen to no matter the artist. However, when it comes time to detail A Gangsta’s Pain, one may take advantage of all the time they have to get the story across well, something Moneybagg Yo very much accomplished.

A Gangsta’s Pain is out now via CMG/N-Less/Interscope. Get it here.