B.U.G. Antman is one of Atlanta’s brightest young stars. He recently signed a deal with Warner, and he even opened up for Teezo Touchdown‘s tour stop in Atlanta. He dropped by rolling out on Fresh Friday to perform one of his hit songs and tell us what we can expect from him in 2025.
So, B.U.G. stands for “Bringing Up Greatness”?
You know, it’s perfect correlation. You know, my name being Ant, man, but yeah, B.U.G. is on some more positive s–t, like bringing up greatness. Like, I’m really trying to be the best at this s–t. So, yeah, I really wanted to staple that with the name.
So, what is your daily grind when it comes to making music? Do you record every day? Do you write every day?
I record every day. Man, I don’t write, but I do record every day like and the reason why I don’t write is because I feel like mastering repetition. The more you do something, to even freestyling, the better you get at it. So you don’t even gotta write anymore. And with me, when I first started, like I never wrote to begin with. So, just doing that over and over, up until now, I really feel like honed in my sound. And speaking on the work ethic, man, like I hate feeling like someone outworking me, especially in Atlanta, bro, because, like, it’s so many artists out here that you gotta be more than hard. You gotta be more than heart right now. She gotta be undeniable. Hard ain’t enough. Even last month, I cooked up 120 songs.
What do you think of Juice WRLD, a rapper with a similar work ethic?
It’s crazy you keep bringing him up. Juice actually had passed on my birthday. So, it’s like he was a big inspiration for me, for sure. Triple nine, you know, I was born in 1999, Dec. 8. Dec. 8, the day he died [in 2019]. And his middle name was Anthony, that’s really my real name. So, that’s why I go by B.U.G. Antman. That s–t really spoke to me, bro, and I feel like I’m just carrying on and continuing because he really didn’t get to go as far as he wanted. He reached the heights, but he didn’t get to reach his full potential. Like outside of Drake, nobody was singing and rapping like Juice WRLD.
What can we expect from the Y’all Ugly EP?
Man, Y’all Ugly will be different. It will be so different than any artist, even different from my previous work, like I just, I’ve been really, really honing in on the sound for this. But y’all can really expect it in March, mid-March. Let’s just throw that date out mid-March. But man, it’s really hard. I’m really trying to push this sound.
What’s good with the bag?
So, the bag is like the mascot for the project Y’all Ugly, I usually have someone post up behind me with it, or whatever. I started styling this s–t and I’m like this s–t kind of hard. I like this s–t, so I started rocking this s–t. But um, for the project Y’all Ugly. Like it’s also some positive s–t. Like, ugly stands for U Gotta Love Yourself. I see a lot of artists like, Tyler or Ye who have mascots for their project.
