Adekunle Gold didn’t just make Coco Money. He wrestled it into existence.
What many fans vibing to that smooth hook don’t know is that one single line, one tiny, seemingly harmless lyric held the entire song hostage for a whole year. And that line belonged to Rihanna.
Yes, that Rihanna.
AG Baby said he was in the studio, building the record, shaping the hook, trying to find the pulse of the song. But something felt hollow.
So he reached into the global pop universe and pulled out a phrase that had lived rent-free in his mind: “that I have my money right.”
A nod to B*** Better Have My Money*, Rihanna’s chest-thumping, bass-heavy anthem.
He knew it was her line. He knew Travis Scott had fingerprints on it too. But what he didn’t know — or rather, remembered too late — was that Kanye West also had a piece of that publishing pie.
And when Ye is involved, nothing moves quickly.
“I saw a video where J. Cole publicly called Ye to clear a song — and that’s J. Cole,” Adekunle said, laughing at the irony. If Cole had to beg publicly, who was he?
So began the bureaucratic pilgrimage. Emails. Calls. Lawyers. Managers. Approvals. Re-approvals. Delays that made the calendar feel like a scam. A clearance journey so long it could have been a visa process for the afterlife.
A whole year. Just to keep that one line.
But AG Baby refused to remove it. It fit. It belonged. It completed the song. So he waited.
And finally the gates opened.
Coco Money dropped in July, sleek and sticky, later finding its way onto his Fuji album like it had always been destined to live there.
Listeners heard a hit.
Adekunle Gold heard a battle he fought and won.
That’s the untold story the sweat-stained, paperwork-choked origin of a hook that almost didn’t make it home.
