Baby Gravy on the evolution of their friendship — from a SoundCloud DM to viral success
Rappers Yung Gravy and bbno$ are back with a new album, Baby Gravy 3
Siegfried and Roy, Mario and Luigi, Penn and Teller — those are a few of the most iconic duos of all time, but we're here to put you on to another one.
American rapper Yung Gravy and Canadian rapper bbno$ (pronounced "baby no money"), collectively known as Baby Gravy, are two huge artists in their own right who've just released their third album as a duo, Baby Gravy 3.
In an interview with Q's Tom Power, Baby Gravy talk about their music, friendship, and why TikTok and SoundCloud aren't just a new frontier for hip-hop, but the primary way artists meet their collaborators.
Baby Gravy's story starts way before either of them had money, success or a following. They first linked up about seven years ago through SoundCloud.
"He slid into my SoundCloud DMs and I had not been rapping for very long," says Yung Gravy, whose real name is Matt Hauri.
"I really liked his music and I knew it would blow up," adds bbno$, also known as Alex Gumuchian. "I just heard it and I was like, 'This is the most original nonsense I've ever heard in my life — it's great.' And we just became friends. He knew how to say my name before anyone else."
In May 2017, Yung Gravy's song Mr. Clean became a viral hit on social media. "They were putting it on sports videos and meme compilations and stuff, and it just randomly went up a lot," he says. "I was getting like 1,000 followers a day and at that point that was so crazy to us. I was calling [bbno$] and I was mind-blown."
WATCH | Baby Gravy's interview with Tom Power:
At that time, bbno$ had a day job as a busser at Steamworks in Vancouver.
"I just remember [Yung Gravy] texting me being like, 'Dude, every time I open up Instagram, I'm getting 1,000 followers,'" he says. "I just remember looking at that text being like, 'Dude, he's blowing up. That's crazy!' And after that, I had a bunch of music ready with him and I was like, 'OK, well now's my shot. Like I need to stop partying and going out.' So I just went apesh-t for two years.
"He brought me on a bunch of tours and it was more like a slow, organic, just normal slope. And then Lalala — I dropped it on June 7, [2019] — and it immediately went gangbusters viral, and that was like a real parabolic slope for my career."
But compared to the artists that blow up on TikTok these days, Yung Gravy says they both had a "slow, normal slope" to the top. Their partnership has always been based on a genuine connection, rather than money.
"There was no business even to be had, so it was just friendship," says Yung Gravy.
The full interview with Yung Gravy and bbno$ is available on our podcast, Q with Tom Power. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
Interview with Yung Gravy and bbno$ produced by Vanessa Nigro.
For more stories about the 50th anniversary of hip-hop — including Tom Power's conversations with some of the artists who witnessed and shaped the genre — check out Hip-Hop at 50 here.
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