The self-proclaimed "King Of Englewood," Fastmoeny Ant, stopped by the Clark St. Studio for the first Q&A guest of 2022. With a string of only six singles, Ant has captivated a loyal following and co-signs from the likes of Est Gee, CEO Trayle, and the DCG Brothers. Throughout this interview, Ant shares with us what it was like to grow up in West Englewood, what it means to be 6ixer, and what's next in his career as he gets ready to drop more singles before his debut project.

CSC: Fastmoney Ant, thanks for stopping by the Clark St. Studio.

FA: What's going on, man. Thanks for having me. 

CSC: Can you introduce yourself and let the people know what you do and who you are.

FA: I'm Fastmoney Ant up and coming artist from Chicago.

CSC: Ant, you're still fairly a new artist. You've been releasing music for over a year now. Let's talk about what made you start rapping?

FA: I don't know. I've always liked music. Like, when I was growing up, my mom always played music. You know?

CSC: What kind of music?

FA: She used to play everything. She used to play a lot of The Dream and shit like that. So I've always had different music playing. Then you know when you grow up, you start looking up your own artist to listen to. I was listening to Lil Wayne, 50 Cent, you know shit like that. Then when I was in high school, I knew I didn't really wanna go to college because I was barely going to high school. So I had to find something out, I can't get old and trying to look for a way to get some money, so I just started writing poetry, and people said it sounded good. So I started to put it on a beat, and yeah. 

CSC: What kind of poetry were you writing?

FA: I was really just writing my story. It could've been a rap, but because it wasn't to no beat, I'd say it was poetry since I never wrote to no beats.

CSC: You have a unique style of rap. Who would you say influenced you?

FA: I don't know because I can't say I was influenced because I don't think I sound like nobody, you know, but I do listen to a lot of artists like Future, Jay Z, 50, Wayne, and I don't think I sound like none of them. 

CSC: Tell us about your upbringing in West Englewood and how it made you the person you are today. 

FA: Growing up in West Englewood, we really was like kids having fun. Of course, we seen different stuff who don't when you from Chicago. Sometimes we dibbled and dabbled into certain stuff we should prolly have no business doing. When you grow up in a community like that, you wanna make some paper because you see all the older people dressing nice with jewelry or whatever the case is you wanna get you some money. Once you start seeing everything, you wanna be a part of that. 

CSC: What's the story behind these flicks?

FA: We was shooting dice at Herb and DCG show in Joliet. After the show, we was just shooting dice me, Wet, Maneski, Ricky, Duwop, it was a couple of us yeah. In those particular pictures, I was cracking Lil Wet. I'm telling you fucking em up! That day I had just gotten off house arrest too. It was like a fun day for me. I had a real nice time. 

CSC: Why were you on house arrest?

FA: I was on house arrest cuz I had got booked for a pipe or whatever. First, they tried to put me on regular em no movement, but I told them I rap and how it was my career my job. So they ended up giving me seven. I was on that all the way till November, and I think that's when Herb had that show, so yeah, that was my first day off house arrest. 

CSC: It's not a secret you love your hood but do you plan on always staying there, or do you plan on moving out of there?

FA: I don't promote violence, but I do promote where I'm from because it's still kids growing up there. There ain't no rapper from my section so right now; Everybody look at me like I'm Herb or Durk. I like showing the kids that I came from where they was just at and had aspirations like you from wanting to rap or whatever you wanna do. Now they got me as a role model to look up to. But nah, I don't wanna say there it would be a setback.  

CSC: What does it mean to be a 6ixer?

FA: A 6ixer that's like my group that's what we call ourselves collectively. Its not a lot of us though a lot of people think they a 6ixer's and they not. Then I hear a lot of people in music saying it, and I kinda backed away from it like y'all can have it man. I'll come up from my own stuff again. 

CSC: Let's talk about dice again. What's your biggest take on a game?

FA: I've been shooting dice for a long time; I've been shooting dice since about 12-years-old. When I was younger, the older people would send me to shoot dice for them with they money because I was always real lucky. There's no such thing as being raw in dice. It's impossible to be raw in dice. The most I've prolly been won was when I was prolly like nine or ten. Also when we shooting dice it don't be for no hour to two the session can be from 7 P.M. to 5'clock in the morning, it's like a job. The most I've prolly win was like $9,000. The thing is, when I was younger, I ain't even get that whole $9,000 cuz the older people gave me money to shoot with, so out of that $9,000, I got like $500-$800 and told me to run along. I was 12 with $800 in my pocket or whatever. That's hell money when you young.

CSC: Any wild stories you could share that happened while shooting dice?

FA: Prolly not wild but crazy though it was going to be my birthday June 3, and I went to go shoot dice on June 1. I was supposed to go to Cali; it was supposed to be my first time going to Cali. This was last year before I got booked. I ended up losing all my money in dice. Like all my money, I was so blew. The next day somebody end up loaning me some money, and I end up winning a whole bunch of money back. I bought a car for my birthday, but yeah, that was crazy. 

CSC: Let's talk about your latest single, 'King of Englewood,' and why you consider yourself the king? 

FA: I wanted to do some that was going to cause a lot of commotion in the city, like who is that? Especially me being so new since I've been doing music for about a year now with only six songs out. Honestly, there's no king in Englewood. It's too big of a place for there to be a king. There's too many gangs, too many factions, too many blocks. At the same time, who go tell me I'm not. It's like you want to have the confidence you the king. If someone say you not the king, they hating. It can be more than one king. If you feel like you the king, you the king, I feel like I'm the king. I feel like coming from where I come from and getting to the point where I'm at even though there's more I can accomplish but didn't no other rapper put me on or I didn't get no co-sign till I already caught 100,000 views, and that's rare I'm from 66th and Marshfield, and I got 100,000 views. So that's why I feel like I'm the king; there's a lot of milestones that I've accomplished and where I'm from, no one ever did that before. 

CSC: Run me down through some of the co-signs you've gotten from people in the industry.

FA: CEO Trayle, that's my dawg. He reached out when I dropped Hawk Em.' He reached out and gave me a free verse, and now is to the point we got four-five songs. DCG they my boys we tied in, Calboy, too many to count. 

CSC: You have a handful of unreleased songs you've snippet on IG; when are they dropping?

FA: That's the question everybody asking. Really I'm just focused on getting myself to pop first. Those songs (with Trayle, DCG, and Calboy) are coming out soon, prolly real soon, sooner than you think.

CSC: Are you working on a debut project?

FA: Honestly, I got like prolly three projects done already. I've been recording like crazy. Writing, recording, my writing process is crazy. I write a song in 30 minutes, go to the studio, and then record four songs at the studio. I plan on dropping my project real soon. It's done so prolly the middle of this year summer time prolly. 

CSC: Do you ever see yourself signing a record deal?

FA: I don't know why people make signing a deal so like it's messed up. They prolly just don't got good lawyers. Signing a deal is kind of like on the streets. Anybody who grew up in the streets know what a deal is like. It's like someone fronting you something. Gotta pay em back plus some percentage. That's basically what a deal is people believing in your career and giving some money to boost it up and then want they money back and a lil percentage. So I don't got a problem with signing a deal. Nothing wrong with a boost or partnership. 

CSC: What's next for Fastmoney Ant?

FA: Big things… I'm waiting on 'King of Englewood' to get to a certain amount of views, then I plan on dropping another single. Then drop one of them features you've been said. It all depends on how I feel. Definitely, want to keep dropping back to back to back. I preview a lot of songs just to see what the fans like and they’ve been showing love.