Kevo Muney is the real baby GOAT, so you already know what type of time he’s on.
Born and raised in South Memphis, an adolescent Kevo would walk to Beale Street and spend his waking hours singing for money, making up to $400 a day.
Carving his own lane deemed “trap soul,” the rising star is here to become one of the greats in the rap game.
Describing himself as “one-of-a-kind,” Kevo states, “One of a kind. I’ll always be myself. I don’t try to fit in, I don’t try to stand out too much. I just be me. Most of us all, I’m one of one.”
At only 20 years old, Kevo is already living his dreams out on the daily, signing to Atlantic Records and receiving cosigns from elites such as Lil Baby, Chief Keef, Kevin Gates, Gunna, and more.
Most recently, he released his heartfelt mixtape titled “Lucille’s Grandson, spitting his truth in the form of street anthems. The project hails standout single “Leave Some Day,” tapping Lil Durk for the official remix.
Read below as we discuss his roots in Memphis, performing on Beale Street as a kid, biggest influences, how he got his name, the success of “Leave Someday,” his new project “Lucille’s Grandson” named after his grandma, why he’s the baby GOAT, studio essentials, why he doesn’t set goals, and more!
AllHipHop: I love your smile. You always smiling?
Kevo Muney: Yeah I got to, every time.
AllHipHop: What makes you one of one?
Kevo Muney: I carry myself. For me to be 20 years old, I carry myself in a good way. I don’t be in no b#######. I don’t be on no negative, s### like that, you know? And I think for my age, at 20 years old, anybody wasn’t on no s### and (can’t decipher). I’m on some positive s###.
AllHipHop: What was the household like growing up in Memphis?
Kevo Muney: Growing up, it was fun. I can’t say it was too bad, I can’t say it was too good. It was fun for the most part. My mama had 8 kids! 4 boys, 4 girls. I’m the last one, but I didn’t start living with my momma until I was 5 or 6 years old. When my mama birthed me, I actually left the hospital with my god-grandma. I used to go to my mama’s house on the weekends. My brothers and sisters barely knew who I was. They used to tease me, saying I was adopted because I used to barely come around. It took me until I got to 7, 8, 9, 10 for me to know I got 7 other brothers and sisters. Growing up, it was fun though.
AllHipHop: What was fun? What do you remember?
Kevo Muney: Walking around the hood. Being in my own world, just finding myself. Because my older brothers didn’t want me to hang around them. Every time I try to hang around my older brothers, they used to say “nah man, you gotta go your own way.” They forced me to find my own way, find my own path. That’s when I started being in my own world, trying to figure out what I liked to do and what I didn’t like to do. I used to love going downtown on Beale Street making money. That’s what I used to do everyday, walk downtown and make money.
AllHipHop: Biggest influences coming up?
Kevo Muney: I was bumping everybody who’s poppin’ all the time. For my personal use, I’d listen to blues music like BB King, Bobby Womack, Bobby Blue Bland, Willy Claim, Otis Redding, people like it. I started getting into rap around the time I turned into a teenager. I was 13, 14, 15, that’s when I started getting into rap. Rap came with growing up.
Growing up where I’m from, when you start to get 13 to 15, it’s your first time really experiencing everything. That’s my first time smoking weed. That’s around the first time I started having sex. That’s the first time I started doing everything, when I was 13 or 14 being a teenager. It came with maturity, rapping came in as I got older.
AllHipHop: When did you realize you could do music for a living?
Kevo Muney: I didn’t ever want it to be a career. At the beginning when I used to go downtown and sing, it used to be my hustle. I never used to think ”this right here can take me this place and this place, or it can make me this much amount of money or it can give me this much fame.” I was never in it for that, I was simply going downtown to get money. My brothers, their hustle was fundraising. They used to fundraise for the football team they used to play with. That’s how they got a few dollars in their pocket. When they used to force me to not hang with them, it forced me to get my own hustle now. See what I’ma do on my own, so now I gotta find my own way.
That’s when I found out I can sing a little bit, let me go try this out. They started loving it. It was a hustle to me, I never was thinking long-term with it. I was never thinking “I can make this a career, I can do this for a lifetime” or nothing like that. I was doing it because it was keeping money in my pocket. I gained a love for music as I kept doing it but at first, I didn’t have no love for music. I was doing it because it got me money like everybody else. Hustle and get their money, that’s what I was doing.
AllHipHop: Is that how you got your name?
Kevo Muney: Nah, I made my own nickname up. I got a brother named DJ. He wasn’t always DJ, my mama gave him that nickname when he was a baby. I don’t know why, but I always wanted a nickname. I never liked it when people called me Kevian. It came with me being in middle school, this is when I came up with a nickname. I said “my name Kevo!” I made everybody call me Kevo and it’s been Kevo ever since. I put Muney behind it because that’s my first love, money. Not gonna lie, I love money. I’ve been getting money since I was 10, on and off. I’ve been getting money on and off my whole life. Literally since I was 8, 9, 10, I’ve been getting money. I spell it Muney because I always remind myself: “who got money?” You! That’s why I put ‘u’, instead of an ‘o’.
AllHipHop: “Leave Someday” was a big song for you. Did you think that would blow up?
Kevo Muney: Yeah facts, I always knew that song was gonna blow up. It’s timeless music. I got timeless music. I could’ve put that song out 5 years ago, or I could’ve put it out 5 years from now and it would’ve did the same thing. That music right there is timeless, you can’t even put no time on it. Certain songs, you have to say “we gotta put this out right now, it gotta blow right now.” That song right there, you can do anything with it and it’ll do the same thing.
AllHipHop: What were you going through recording it?
Kevo Muney: At that time I had lost both of my grandmas a month or two apart. I went to the studio, that’s what came out of me. Every time I go into the studio, 9 times out of 10 I’d went through some s###. Even if it’s the simplest s### or a large situation, I always have something on my mind when I’m going to the studio so I could have a topic to go off of. Just so happened, that’s the day I had to go in the studio and let that out.
AllHipHop: How did it feel getting Durk on the record?
Kevo Muney: It feels good, I f### with Durk. We were texting this morning for real, for real. Him and Pooh Shiesty, they shooting a video in Memphis. He was supposed to tell me, but he was saying it was a last minute situation. They didn’t even know they were gonna shoot the video.
AllHipHop: Why are you the baby GOAT?
Kevo Muney: The meaning behind it, I started off with the GOAT s### right? When I started out with the GOAT s###, I seen too much s### going on with it as far as people taking the name too serious. “Oh, he ain’t the GOAT! He ain’t did this, he ain’t did that.” But you don’t know the reason I call myself the GOAT. I don’t get mad when people call other people GOATs because everybody is your GOAT in your own world. I don’t know who your GOAT is in your own world, everybody got their own GOATs in their own lives.
I really let go of GOAT term, calling myself the GOAT because people were taking it too seriously. I look at s### like if I ain’t making no money off of it, then I don’t even give a f### about it. So I let it go. I started calling myself the baby GOAT, I said I’ma leave the GOAT title to people like Stevie Wonder, Prince, James Brown, and Usher. Ill let them have the GOAT title, I’m baby GOAT. then I’ve been seeing some people on the baby GOAT wave. I used to get mad when I seen people doing the GOAT s### or carrying themselves like that, because I know when I was sitting down and making this s### up, I didn’t copy off nobody. For me to see people on some GOAT s###, it used to make me mad. As I got older and matured more, I got to thinking “I can’t get mad because I’m influencing people.” I had to look at it like anybody I see that’s doing what I’m doing, I influenced them.
AllHipHop: Lucille’s Grandson out now. How are you feeling?
Kevo Muney: I’m feeling good. I’m glad to get this music out to my fans. That’s all I’ve been wanting to do for real, for real.
AllHipHop: What’s the meaning behind the title?
Kevo Muney: See, I was gon’ name my mixtape Biggest GOAT on the Farm. Lucille’s Grandson was sitting so heavy on my heart, so I had to go and move with that name. The meaning speaks for itself. Anybody who got a grandma, whether your grandma dead or alive, everybody’s grandma got a certain spot in their heart. This is me explaining how I feel about my grandma. I know it’s a lot of people out there that got a mutual feeling because 9 times out of 10, everybody love their grandma.
AllHipHop: The first record is “Happiness From Within,” what is happiness from within to you?
Kevo Muney: A lot of people be living in a shadow. I’m one of those people that always have a smile on my face, but I’ll be going through a lot of s### on the inside. I have a smile on my face, but I be frowning in the inside. You gotta have happiness from within. You gotta be happy on the inside. Stop trying to look happy, be happy.
AllHipHop: Favorite songs on the project and why?
Kevo Muney: “I Got Feelings” and “3 in a Row.” “I Got Feelings,” it’s different. It’s coming different as a whole from how I usually come. I’m still coming how I come, but I’m coming different. “3 in a Row,”” that’s a banger off the rip. That’s a banger all-around.
AllHipHop: How does it feel to get co-signs from Lil Baby, Chief Keef, Kevin Gates, Gunna?
Kevo Muney: It feels good. You know how that goes. I’ve been expecting this s### though, not gonna lie. I know how hard I work and I know how hard my music is. I know I’m hard, not on no cocky s###. Me understanding music, I’ve been doing music since I was 12 or 13. Rapping at 12 or 13, so I know good music from bad music. If my music was trash, I would’ve been stopped rapping. I’ll be brutally honest with myself. Before I let the world criticize me and make me feel bad, I’ll tell myself “lil bruh, this is not it! Go put that s### in the garbage.”
I understand music enough for me to say “man little bruh, you hard!” That’s what I always tell myself. I don’t need nobody else to tell me, I don’t need nobody else to boost my ego. And I got potential out the roof. For me be 20 years old, I got a long way to go. I’m gonna have a wild story! When my life ends, my story gonna be wild man. I’ve had some ups and some downs, but through it all, everybody’s going to say “man, that young n*gga was that.” He was that, all-around.
AllHipHop: 3 things you need in the studio?
Kevo Muney: I need some waterbottles. I need some weed. I need my engineer Anthony. If I ain’t in there with Ant, I don’t really be feeling the studio session. When I be locked in with my boy Ant, we be locked in for real for real. He be making me come out with my hardest s###.
AllHipHop: Goals for yourself at this point in your career?
Kevo Muney: I don’t like to set goals for myself. I always feel like whatever gon’ happen, gon’ happen. Whatever meant to happen, gon’ happen. Whatever ain’t meant to happen, it ain’t meant to happen. I’m going with the flow. Wherever this s### takes me, that’s where I’m gon’ go. I ain’t expecting nothing out of this s###, but my fans to love my music and money. Don’t expect nothing else. I love my fans and money. [laughs] I ain’t with all that other stuff.
