Also the irony of the "self made" on the Trump tat when they're both nepotism babies is not lost on me.
Only half of his face tattoos were visible from where I sat: a diamond balanced on the coiffed hair of a cartoon Richie Rich on his cheek. Two interlocked Rs—to stand for Rolls-Royce—nestled next to his ear. And the Bitcoin symbol peeking out from under his red, white, and blue “American Gangster” cap.
As we inched our way up the Gulf to Bay Boulevard, rain thudding against the windshield and sunroof, I almost forgot how we must have looked to passers-by. The Rolls-Royce is painted cotton-candy pink and neon blue. It’s covered in drawings of dollar bills, Bitcoins, piggy banks—and Richie Rich. On the hood are the words “Trump’s Nephew.” Forgiato Blow, whose real name is Kurt Jantz, is not Trump’s nephew. But the illusion is a key part of his alter ego. It’s also the name of his latest album.
While Jantz was parking, a man outside Hooters laughed. “Who the hell drives that? Captain Crunch?”
I repeated the joke over dinner, with his producer Dexter Drayton (aka FangaLee) and another up-and-coming MAGA rapper, Stoney DudeBro.
They laughed. Jantz wasn’t as amused. He first rose to fame in the early 2020s because of his work in the Trumpist hip-hop subgenre, MAGA rap, also known as patriot rap and MAGA music, according to Vice.
“I look at Trump like a rapper. A hustler. The man. Ballplayer. You know what I’m saying?” Jantz said during an interview with Vice. “He’s got everything he wants.”
Since stepping into the music scene the avid Donald Trump supporter has released several songs, including Let's Go Brandon, Back the Blue, Boycott Target, Ride the Horse, and 4 More Years.
“I’ve always thought I was the Donald Trump of rap,” Jantz continued.
“In the music industry, everyone loved me, but nobody wanted to support me on a big record label. Or everybody wants to support me and be my friend when they need something from me.
"I felt like that was like Trump—before he was president, everybody loved him… Said he’s going to be the president and they said, ‘No way.’ And then what happened? He became the president. While Jantz might be newer to the spotlight, it's nothing he's unfamiliar with.
He grew up in a wealthy family thanks to the success of his grandfather, Stuart Arnold.
Arnold was a highly successful businessman in the Tampa Bay area known for founding the magazine Auto-Trader. On one recent Friday evening, I found myself stuck in traffic there.
It was pouring rain, and I was riding shotgun in a Rolls-Royce with a 38-year-old MAGA rapper named Forgiato Blow. We were on our way to have dinner at Hooters.
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