In the early aughts, Metcalfe’s star was on the rise. In 2003 he appeared on the debut album from poet-turned-rapper Malik Yusef, The Great Chicago Fire: A Cold Day in Hell, which also features Common, Kanye West, and Twista. He was also building a hip-hop infrastructure in Harvey and its surrounding suburbs, an area he calls “Harvey World.”
“Whenever we put out something, our city embraced it—whenever we threw a show, people would come out,” Metcalfe says. “Harvey World was very receptive to our movement because we were representing Harvey. Once you got a whole city of people, then you can take over the whole south suburbs. That kind of gave us the ammunition to get us the support from Chicago.”
Metcalfe took Driver and Money into a professional studio for the first time, where they picked up skills through osmosis. “I probably engineered a few sessions for Marvo,” Money says. “They used to lock me in the studio—like, lock the door from the outside. I’d be in that bitch for hours—come out with like three songs.” And Metcalfe had other reasons to keep Money close. “Ty was in the streets, and so I was always trying to keep him with me, keep him in the studio,” Metcalfe says. “Trouble tends to find him wherever he goes.”
Driver and Money earned spots on Marvo’s 2004 mixtape, Respect & Live Vol. 1. “The response that we got off of the verses that we did on that project really gave us the gas to [be] like, ‘OK, we can do this shit on our own,'” Driver says. As FireSquad, they released a couple mixtapes—2006’s Quit Talking Get Money Vol. 1 and 2011’s Rosé, Cush & Macbooks—before Money ran into what he refers to as “some bullshit.” “I caught my first felony case,” he explains. “I was dumb. I didn’t know the law like that—I really wasn’t even supposed to go to prison.” When I ask him why he got locked up, the otherwise talkative Money balks: “I’d rather not say.” A search of Mugshots.com reveals that he served time for one count of residential burglary.
Before heading to prison in January 2012, Money recorded what would become his first solo mixtape, Free Money. “I knew I had to turn myself in, so we rushed that bitch,” he says. “It took probably like a week or two.” He also managed to work on Free Money behind bars, writing to Driver about potential guest rappers and phoning in a freestyle that became the mixtape’s opening cut, “Jail.” Free Money had already dropped when Money was released in December 2012; Driver picked him up, and they listened to it on the drive home. It was the first time Money had heard the finished product. “Shit was cold, bro,” he says. “I couldn’t believe it. I was happy.”
Free Money stirred up interest in Money as a solo artist. “When I got out, I met a lot of people who was willin’ to get behind and make this Ty Money thing work,” he says. Through Metcalfe he linked up with local indie label Gold Coast Music Group, and in March 2013 the label booked Money on a show with Atlanta mixtape guru DJ Drama at Markham nightclub Adrianna’s. Metcalfe says that Clay Evans, vice president of T.I.’s Grand Hustle label, was in the house for Money’s set. “Clay saw him perform and they was like, ‘Yo, this kid is crazy,'” Metcalfe says. “Clay let T.I. hear the music, and T.I. became interested.”
Money didn’t end up signing a deal with Grand Hustle, but the growing outside interest in his career influenced his second mixtape, 2014’s stylistically broad The Turn Up G.H.O.D. The influence wasn’t all good, though: “I had a lot of people in my ear,” he says. “It’s like, ‘Man, we need this type of song, we need that type of song.’ So I ran with it. And you can kind of hear it. It sounds a little more corporate. I had a lot of features on there because [the process] was a little more political.” In contrast with Free Money, which he’d rushed through, The Turn Up G.H.O.D took about six months to record. It features contributions from the likes of King Louie and Chief Keef, but Money wasn’t happy with how much control he’d given up—and the release didn’t attract the accolades he thought it deserved.