Moneybagg Yo books the Bell Auditorium for Black Friday

The Memphis rapper, back this year with "I See Why," plays Augusta's renovated Bell on Friday, Nov. 27 — the night after Thanksgiving.

The leftovers will barely be in the fridge. The night after Thanksgiving, when half of Augusta is home from school or work and looking for a reason to get out of the house, Moneybagg Yo is bringing Memphis to Telfair Street.

The rapper plays The Bell Auditorium on Friday, Nov. 27, with the show set for 8 p.m. The date went up on Oct. 29, and tickets are on sale now through Ticketmaster, running $72.30 to $236.70. That spread tells you how this one is likely to go: the cheap seats tend to vanish first, and a holiday-weekend Friday is the kind of night when people who were on the fence suddenly aren't.

If you've only caught Moneybagg Yo on the radio or on somebody's aux cord, here's the short version. He's a Memphis rapper who climbed to the very top of the Billboard 200 earlier this decade, and this summer he ended a long stretch of quiet. In July his label announced his return with the single "I See Why," billed as his first solo release of the year and arriving five years after his first No. 1 debut on that chart. Coverage at the time called it a defiant comeback after months of fans asking where he'd gone. He has talked up a new album too, though no release date has been set, so treat any talk of new material at the Bell as a bonus rather than a promise.

What makes this booking fun is the room. The Bell is not an arena, and it doesn't feel like one. It's the older, more intimate half of the downtown entertainment complex, and it spent most of 2023 and early 2024 behind construction fencing. Crews broke ground on a renovation in May 2023, kept the terrazzo floors and the terracotta they uncovered, and the building reopened in late May 2024 with modern seating, concessions and the rest — the same week the old James Brown Arena next door closed to make way for its replacement. Local coverage of the reopening leaned on the same word over and over: night and day.

That matters for a show like this one. With the new arena still under construction, the Bell is where Augusta's big touring nights land for now, and a rapper who has headlined much larger buildings will be working a room where the back rows can still see his face. The complex itself is about to take a familiar name, too: late last month the Coliseum Authority voted to call it the James Brown Entertainment Complex, with the new arena aiming for summer 2027. A hip-hop headliner playing under the Godfather of Soul's banner, in his hometown, feels about right.

A holiday-weekend Friday is the kind of night when people who were on the fence suddenly aren't.

A few practical notes. Downtown parking on a holiday Friday can get tight, so give yourself extra time, and if you're bringing anyone home for the break, buy together — the price range means seats scatter quickly once the floor and lower sections go.

So eat the turkey on Thursday. Save the voice for Friday.

Sources: Moneybagg Yo makes long-awaited return, new single "I See Why" out now — Universal Music Canada (universalmusic.ca); Moneybagg Yo Returns with Defiant New Single 'I See Why' (exclusiveaccess.net); Moneybagg Yo reveals album title on Grammys red carpet — Complex (complex.com); Bell Auditorium reopens, James Brown Arena closes this week — WRDW (wrdw.com); Reopened Bell Auditorium makes big debut with concert — WRDW (wrdw.com); Behind the curtain of the Bell Auditorium renovations — Augusta Good News (augustagoodnews.com); Augusta Coliseum Authority breaks ground on Bell Auditorium renovations — The Augusta Press (theaugustapress.com); Arena-auditorium complex set to keep James Brown name — WRDW (wrdw.com); James Brown Arena — Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org); Moneybagg Yo tickets — Ticketmaster (ticketmaster.evyy.net)