Louie Ray is a rapper out of Flint, Michigan, is has recently gone viral for his song “Cash App,” which has become a fan favorite single on TikTok. Though Ray has seen success with the song, his main focus is giving back to his community and putting Flint, Michigan on the map.
Ray talks with rolling out about how he started rapping, his single “Cash App,” and how it became popular on TikTok.
Tell us about growing up in Flint, Michigan, and how you started rapping.
It was straight to the point. It was kind of like a small place. It didn’t feel like a city, but more like a town, so everybody knew each other and a lot of people were close. I had some homeboys that rapped in a group called LMC OB, and they would basically go in there and rap about how their day went. That’s how I got into it. I just thought it was fun so I wanted to do it. I did one song and it was easy for me, so once I did that, I just kept going.
How did you create the song “Cash App?”
One of my friends was telling me to do something about cash or Cash App. I was on a song in 2020, and in the song, I said “I use my Cash App card when I cash her out.” That part was going crazy when we performed it. So he said I should make a Cash App song, and I did it. When we first put the song out, it wasn’t doing anything. The song had been out for a year, and it was intentionally made to do nothing. I had no real thought process around it. It was just a mess. That’s all that really was, and it just took off recently, like three months ago.
How did the song become popular on TikTok?
My boy Greece is a producer and he actually made the beat, and I feel like he had people in Grand Rapids doing the dance. There wasn’t a certain part yet in the song where people were dancing, so whoever found the song picked a part that they feel was like right for the dance, and it hit. It went viral, and I think it started in Grand Rapids. We went viral for the first time in Grand Rapids, and that was the first time I got love outside my city. I was like “Wow.”
