HIP-HOP Meet Flipp Dinero, the Brooklyn Rapper Who Won Over Joey Bada$$ & Cinematic's Jonny Shipes

For Flipp Dinero, persistence is the name of the game. After cracking through the surface with his melodic single "I Do", Joey Bada$$ and his Pro Era crew caught wind of the Brooklyn upstart, resulting in a feature on member Kirk Knight's "Memories." At that point, Bada$$ and Cinematic Music Group's Jonny Shipes knew Dinero had the potential to become something special.

"I wouldn't say it was out the blue, but we planned on building," says Dinero regarding his signing to Shipes' Cinematic label in the summer of 2016. "Jonny was like a mentor towards me, because I met Joey through a mutual friend [photographer Dee Knows] back in 2015. So when I met Joey through the mutual friend, me and Joey had built a relationship."

The bond between Dinero and Bada$$ blossomed, and the "Land of the Free" MC provided gems to help propel the career of his fellow Brooklyn peer. "He was like, 'Yo Flipp, I really feel like you would be big if you do your thing and you just gotta focus.' I took into consideration what he said and I stayed on it," recalls the 21-year-old. "That's what led to me meeting Jonny. When Jonny came across me, he was like, 'Yo, you're dope. I wanna work with you, but we gotta keep building. You gotta show people that you want it.' That's what I'm doing now."

Dinero then doubled down his efforts and began chipping away at his bars. The result? His booming single "Running Up Bands." Inspired by the popular video game series Grand Theft Auto, Dinero paints the town red with his friends in his new video. With a fistful of cash in his hands, the Cinematic signee hangs out of lavish cars while reciting the lyrics to his contagious tune.

"When I made the song, I wanted to make a hood anthem representing something positive, as opposed to negativity," Dinero says. "The thing is, we always rap about shooting and just doing crazy things in general. I wanted to switch it up and make what we all admire the motive of the song, which is running up bands."

With a catchy song, Dinero knew he needed his visuals to be on the same level. "When I made the track, 'I was like, 'Nah, we gotta make a crazy visual for this,' because it sounds like a GTA [Grand Theft Auto] track. It sounds like it can be in a video game. That's just the whole concept of the bands, and hanging off the trucks and hanging out the Benz. That's when everything came into play."

With Cinematic serving as his new home, Dinero will hope to follow the success of his label mate Joey Bada$$, Mick Jenkins, and more. Later this summer, Dinero will also unleash his new project, The Guala Way EP. For him, he feels that his selling point will be his adaptability.

"I'm big on versatility," he says. "I really feel like versatility is what determines an artist and what makes an artist go far. I got the soulful rap and I have the melodic tracks. I have everything that's in that EP. I'm the type of person [where] I don't really like talking. Actions speak louder than words. Trust me, my EP is a problem."

Watch "Running Up Bands" below.