A Quote by Moneybagg Yo

When I first started rapping, I was just doing it for the hood to notice me - the hood fame - just to get people's attention around the city, to make me a little show money. But then music became my passion, it got real serious.
I come from making money in the streets. The streets all I know. All my family is still in the streets. So, it's going to be hard to pull me right back into that. When I ain't doing no shows four days out of the week, I may be in my hood or at my grandma's house in the hood. But yes, I got a kid. I got to get more serious about the music so he don't get dragged into that life.
Yeah, I was a brother on the streets of Compton doing a lot of things most people look down on but it did pay off. Then we started rapping about real stuff that shook up the LAPD and the FBI. But we got our message across big time, and everyone in America started paying attention to the boys in the hood.
A visit to the hood through a record, or through a video, or through a film, is a lot safer than actually visiting the people in real life. It became a business model. It became a revenue engine that, you know, you can get to the hood without ever going there.
If you outlaw half a million people you make martyrs of them. For example, if you outlaw Robin Hood, it is all very well, but if you outlaw a whole group of people around Robin Hood, then Robin Hood and his merry men become legends.
I was proud of 'Robin Hood,' even though critics wrote negative things. But I had to laugh when this big, shaven-headed Hungarian stunt guy first saw me. He said, 'You Jonas? You playing Robin Hood? You need to go to the gym today.' So I thought, 'I'm going to show people.'
The 'American Idol' and 'X Factor' shows, they're great shows. But I think I need to make a show like that, directed straight to the hood, to the artists that don't get the attention, that don't have the money to make themselves representable.
I came back to the hood and got in those streets and started doing whatever it took for me to provide.
I think 'Long Live the Kane' was pretty much a real boxed-in mindset with me just doing what I represented in the hood.
In the game, you've got some people who've got money, but their music is kind of off, their music is garbage. Then, you have people with good music, but they ain't got the biggest part: They ain't got the funds. But me, I'm just all the way around the board.
Swishahouse, it started off as just a crew making mixtapes and that's when I got down with it back in like 1998. It wasn't a record label at first. It was all just for promotion, for fun, and we just had a crew representin' for our hood.
I had been asked to open a nightclub in Atlantic City. They offered me a ridiculous amount of money. They literally overpaid me. So I did one show a night. Then they asked me back by popular demand. So I went back. Then I said, "To hell with this." I was only doing it for the money, and I was doing easy routines. It's just too much work to get up every day and practice.
For me, basketball was always about survival because I was just trying to get out the hood, right? When I got to Chicago, I'm like, 'I'm just trying to survive, and anybody I got to step on or break, so be it.'
I can't speak for everybody, but sometimes, people get in this showbiz game and they get the money, but then they forget why they got in the game in the first place. I don't even look at it as fame, I just look at it as me being me, and me going out here everyday and being productive, because I am the product, and I'm selling myself. I'm selling my ambition and my integrity and my adversity, and I'd just like to be that.
For years, people have been trying to talk to me about doing a show, and I wouldn't do one because I'm a serious business guy. I'm not going to do a stupid show. So, the opportunity came up with CNBC, and we started talking. It became a real business show. It's educational, people watch it, and it's great for small business.
When people are like, 'Why are these white people walking around this black hood?' I'm like, 'Why aren't they?' If it ain't bothering nobody, they can do whatever they want! They're in the hood to make it better.
I was studying to be a doctor like every good Indian boy, and doing music on the side as a hobby. Then I started to get a little serious and record companies started giving me offers!
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