Fat Money is focused on reinvention. Since the mid-2010s, the Chicago-born rapper has delivered lyrically sharp, narratively rich, and emotionally nuanced street rap as Ty Money. Each mixtape and the six volumes of his annual Cinco De Money series brought listeners to 147th St. and Sibley Blvd. in his hometown of Harvey, Illinois, the war-torn block where emptied clips lead to closed casket funerals and physical scars form long before psychological wounds heal. After years of prison stints and staunch independence, he’s free, working with SALXCO management, and signed to EMPIRE, creating the most emotionally affecting and stylistically versatile music of his career. The change to Fat Money, which everyone calls him in his hood, signifies Money growing into himself: personally, professionally, artistically.

“The whole city knows about me,” Fat Money says. “They’re sitting back and waiting for me to take it to the next level, to take the next step.”

Money Got Wings is the next step. A collaboration with Cardo, the GRAMMY-winning producer behind hits for Drake and Wiz Khalifa, Money Got Wings is both a return to form and a stylistic departure. Backed by booming yet melodic trap production from Cardo, Fat Money deploys an array of aggressive flows alongside auto-tuned croons. He rejects mumbled hooks from posturing Internet thugs, weighing diamond-studded flexes of the present against the lingering trauma of finding bullets in his Tonka trucks as a child. Money makes sense of the “organized chaos” of his life, tracing a line from the kilos his father stashed in his bedroom to the memorials of fallen brothers tattooed on his arms.

“Where I’m from, you go through shit all day every day. People you love are dying, and people you love are killing people you love. To be able to fit all of that into one project is organized chaos.”

Fat Money was born Tiwan Raybon on the Southside of Chicago, where the demolition of government housing displaced and created chaos for generations of Black residents. Money’s family soon moved to Harvey, a Chicago suburb that governmental neglect turned into a ghost town of abandoned, dilapidated homes. Though he won spelling bees and earned good grades, his parents’ split and his father’s drug dealing created a rebellious streak that led Money to drop out of high school. Money quickly became involved in street life, but his various hustles coincided with his interest in pursuing a rap career. After rapping with his cousin as part of duo Fire Squad, he recorded his 2011 debut Free Money, which was released during his first prison sentence.

The next several years were a blur of incarceration, block activities, and bursts of recording. In 2015, Money released the first volume of Cinco De Money while on house arrest, putting on for his section of Harvey and garnering praise from Pitchfork for “the crisp precision and forceful confidence of [his] rapping and the taut

unease of his bars.” Cinco De Money landed on Rolling Stone’s “40 Best Rap Albums of 2015,” and Money has obliged his growing fanbase by releasing a new volume almost every May 5th.

There was no Cinco De Money project during Money’s final year of incarceration in 2018, but he spent that year reading, finding solace in The Autobiography of Gucci Mane, and planning his next moves. Since his release, Money hasn’t slowed down, releasing three volumes of Cinco De Money between 2019 and 2021. With his management team and EMPIRE behind him, all the pieces are in place for Money to reach the next level with Money Got Wings. His road has been long, but he knows it was necessary.

“There’s nothing wrong with the long road. When things take off, there will be a whole catalog for people to listen to.”