Houston rapper Fat Tony isn’t generally prone to making displays of his wealth. For one thing, he prefers to maintain a relatively low-key image in comparison to some of his Texas brethren. For another, he’s always been the hip-hop equivalent of working class: He makes enough to live comfortably, and that’s enough for him. But every now and then, it feels good to just ball out, even on a budget, which is the inspiration for his latest video, “Money All Around.”
Coming from Tony’s excellent but overlooked 2017 album MacGregor Park, “Money All Around” is his celebration of the finer things in life. Sometimes, an unexpected bonus comes along, or there’s a little extra money in the budget, and in times like those, all you can do is stunt. “The song itself is me coming from a point where I was really, really broke,” he says. “A few years ago I was living back in Houston and I really didn’t have lots of shit going on. It’s talking about the mindset I had to put myself into where I am now.”
While Tony’s version of stunting is decidedly much less ostentatious than many other rappers’, there’s no doubt he’s having a ball in the James Thomas Marsh-directed video as he pops bottles of champagne in a hot tub with some of his closest friends.
“With this music video, I kinda wanted to parody the capitalist side of being a rapper,” Tony says of the humorous clip.”Most folks are fascinated by this whole idea of success being flaunting money by literally throwing it around. It isn’t something that I do in my normal life, but I wanted to kind of mock that with this video. There’s a scene of me in a hot tub with some girls and with money laying on me while I’m drinking wine. It’s a silly way of poking fun at a lot of the imagery that people think is necessary to be a successful rapper.”
While “Money All Around” is the final video from Tony’s MacGregor Park run, he’s already hard at work on a number of new projects, including a group called Charge It To The Game, whose debut full-length House With A Pool is due next month on Wavves’ label Ghost Ramp, and an upcoming LA show with Russian protest punk band Pussy Riot.
