// Photo by Sharmila Dey and Ian Palk

On November 16, a musical phenomenon known as Baby Gravy took Boston’s MGM Fenway by storm. Composed of two artists and best friends — Alex Gumuchian, aka bbno$ (pronounced “baby no money”), and Matthew Hauri, aka Yung Gravy — Baby Gravy is a quirky duo with the unique ability to capture an audience’s attention and hearts.

Despite touring as a duo this year, these two artists are independently successful. From hits like “Betty,” “One Thot Two Thot Red Thot Blue Thot,” and “Mr. Clean,” Yung Gravy has become known for his flirtatious personality and notorious affinity for older women. He has garnered a large following on TikTok and his music embodies his playboy persona. With smooth, raunchy, and comical bars, Yung Gravy’s music is infectious. bbno$ is equally skilled and entertaining. He has multiple viral songs on TikTok and an extensive musical catalog dating back to 2014. Despite following a more traditional rap approach, bbno$ puts his own spin on the genre with quirky and bizarre lyrics, like “Baby in the sun like the Teletubbies” from his song “edamame” with Rich Brian. The artists’ synergy is almost unmatched.

// Photo by Sharmila Dey and Ian Palk

Before Baby Gravy came on stage, the openers, Tiiiiiiiiiip (the duo’s DJ) and Terror Reid, did an excellent job of generating hype in the audience. Tiiiiiiiiiip played a sequence of widely adored songs like “Party In The U.S.A.” and “Sweet Caroline” to get the crowd’s voices warmed up. Terror Reid brought a very different approach. Much like Danny Brown, his style is reminiscent of old school rap but with his own vocal and lyrical twist. Reid held his own and is definitely a young rising star.

When bbno$ and Yung Gravy began their set, it was immediately clear that this would be just as much about their stage performance as it would be about the music. One moment, they discussed Yung Gravy’s escapades in other cities and in another, bbno$ did his rendition of a nursery rhyme before jumping into the rest of the track “nursery.” At one point, bbno$ gave a theatrical reading from a Fifty Shades of Grey-inspired cookbook, and twice Yung Gravy threw entire boxes full of Froot Loops at the crowd to hype up the audience for his viral banger “Oops!” The crowd swooned when Gravy paraded around a bouquet of roses, occasionally throwing some into the audience. bbno$ stole the spotlight with eccentric performances to songs like “touch grass” and “on god.” While on stage, the artists’ energy was electric. bbno$ skipped, danced, staggered, and twerked across the stage, energizing the crowd, while Yung Gravy swayed and jumped, stealing their hearts. Throughout the concert, it was very clear why these two are best friends off-stage as well. Their skills played off each other perfectly to create a phenomenal experience.

// Tiiiiiiiiiip opening for Baby Gravy. Photo by Sharmila Dey and Ian Palk

The following interview has been edited for clarity.

Ian Palk: How did you two meet?

Alex Gumuchian (bbno$): In 2016 I sent Gravy a message on SoundCloud and that’s pretty much it. We just became friends. I don’t think either of us expected to get this far. He’s definitely a bit smarter than me when it comes to marketing. We haven’t known each other for that long. Meeting people that are genuine in the music industry is really difficult, but I genuinely call him family at this point — it’s sick. It’s really cool to be able to do this not just by myself, but with friends.

Ian: What is your creative process like? Especially when working together?

Alex: Usually what happens is that I make most of a song, and I send it to him, and he’s like “This is good” or “This is bad,” and then he jumps on it and that’s about it —

Matt Hauri (Yung Gravy): And then I go crazy. Somehow I always end up with the line that gets pushed. Even though Alex started it.

Alex: Always.

Matt: Sometimes we’ll be in the studio together and we’ll start a song and I’ll freestyle a great verse and then get in my head about it and overthink it and rewrite the whole thing over, like, 10 hours. But we’ve gotten better at it. For Baby Gravy 3 we worked on it from scratch together. It’s cool writing together because we can help each other write bars and we have very similar brains.

Ian: What is your favorite part of touring?

Matt: Hanging with my boy. I also like the meet and greets because we get to meet the realest, craziest, and most hardcore fans who inspire you with something. Every time there’s always someone who comes through with some cute inspirational shit about how you’ve changed their life, which is awesome. And also being able to go to cities and being able to see the same people every time I go there. You have to keep friends all around the country and all around the world.

Alex: Traveling is cool. It’s a blessing but sometimes it’s a curse if you do too much of it. I miss being home and hanging out with my family.

// bbno$ performing. Photo by Sharmila Dey and Ian Palk

Ian: Matt, Alex was telling us that you have a degree in marketing. How does your degree help you now?

Matt: Marketing has always been my shit. When I was still in college, I was a consultant for hella companies. I worked on branding for really big companies like the one that started UberEats. I would teach Ph.D. students how to talk to people. I’ve always been really good at selling shit and branding, and then I was like, “Man, I also like rap, so why don’t I just sell my rap?” I think Alex started more on the music side and knew more about music, so it was good to have someone like him who knew what mixing was.

Alex, to Matt: I taught you a lot!

Matt: And I helped you with marketing shit too!

Alex: I remember when Matt was uploading to Youtube, I wasn’t, and I was like, fuck, I gotta do more! And then I remember when Matt put all his links in his YouTube descriptions and I was like, “I gotta start doing that.”

Matt: I also remember when I paid Alex $5 to never burp or fart on the mic. He would do little burp adlibs and shit.

Alex: Shit was fire.

Matt: It was gross. I did not want to be associated with that!

Alex: I remember when you paid me $5 to mix a song. That’s crazy — now it’s like $3,000.

// Yung Gravy performing. Photo by Sharmila Dey and Ian Palk

Sharmila Dey: Both of you have a lot of traction on TikTok. Does that influence how you write music? Do you ever write for TikTok, or is it just coincidental when it goes viral?

Matt: I’ve seen people try and it doesn’t work that well. I guess it can work in the short-term, but it doesn’t last. You’ve just gotta make good music. Look at “Bad Habits” by Steve Lacy — song is fucking great, and it’s huge on TikTok because it’s a good song.

Alex: You can find yourself being like, “Oh, this would be good for TikTok.”

Matt: Yeah, like we make an album and we know which three songs are probably more likely to perform on TikTok, but it’s not like we go into the studio and are like, “Yo, what are these people going to start grinding to?”

Alex: Although, I will contradict that. I literally put “I hope this doesn’t blow up on TikTok” in a song and then it blew up on TikTok — like, it works! That was a five-brain play for sure. But also “shining on my ex” is just a good song.

Matt: Yeah, it’s a really great song.

Alex: I think fundamentally, you just have to make good music and then everything else will follow. For instance, for me, I was like “I don’t think ‘shining on my ex’ will blow up on TikTok — but if it does, God bless.” And it didn’t need to because it was just a great song. I knew it would do super well no matter what.

Sharmila: What’s your favorite part about this show?

Matt: Yeah, when we’re onstage and we’re talking, it’s about 50/50 calculated and us just having a good time. That, I think, is when people feel like they can relate more — when they know it’s going to be a unique show, because we’re talking about specific things. I think scripting shit fully is too much, so I think we have a good medium of planned and free stuff.

Alex: Our show is very much just: Have fun! I’ve been to so many shows by bands I adore where they don’t do anything on stage and don’t interact with the crowd and it’s disappointing. But that’s what we really focus on. Even more than our music, we try to figure out how we can grab the audience and put them in the palm of our hand.

// Sharmila Dey ’25 and Ian Palk ’25 are guest writers for The Darker Side.