Moneybagg Yo’s come-up was anything but quick. The South Memphis MC’s mixtapes date back to 2012, and by the time he’d released his first proper album, 2018’s RESET, he had two separate well-acclaimed mixtape series under his belt (Heartless and Federal). As his star began to rise, though—and his feature price with it—Bagg did something wholly unnecessary in the scope of contemporary hip-hop hitmaking: He continued to improve as a rapper. His reputation as a street-certified truthsayer, along with the relationships he’d cultivate to help spread his message, was long solidified by the time of A Gangsta’s Pain, but that album took Bagg’s presence to another level. And he had no one to thank but himself. Bagg had sharpened his bars and delivery with each release prior, and as he told Apple Music, he relished the time lockdown gave him to master song composition. “I sat down and thought about everything and I made the biggest songs of my career—of my life—in the pandemic,” he said. For Bagg’s efforts, we got arena-ready collaborations like his and Future’s “Hard for the Next,” fun and inventive flows like one he uses on “Shottas,” and a clever addiction/relationship metaphor that reintroduced one of the greatest samples in hip-hop to his generation with “Wockesha.” With A Gangsta’s Pain—and its Reloaded rerelease—Moneybagg Yo was able to stake a claim in rap stardom that won’t soon be dislodged. In conversation with Apple Music ahead of the album’s release, the MC was humble about his process. “I'm giving them everything they love about Moneybagg Yo,” he said. As it turns out, there’s a lot to love.