“All I want to know now is how much did we pay for this?” That’s the question from Detroit rapper Gmac Cash in his new single “Detroit Sign.”
The answer: around $400,000.
Jessica Parker, the city’s deputy director of operations, told the Detroit Free Press that the installation of the sign is one of several infrastructure improvements planned ahead of the NFL Draft, which is scheduled to take place in Detroit at the end of the month.
Before the city installed the sign, Parker told the outlet it would look “like the Hollywood sign, but smaller.”
Cash disagrees.
“I thought our sign would look like Hollywood,” Cash raps. “That’s probably why they put that bitch right next to the hood.”
Cash’s new song — in which he says the sign looks like “Times New Roman” — attracted more than a million views on TikTok in a single day.
Cash, a local Detroit rapper, has several songs about the city’s iconic attractions, usually with a comedic twist. In 2022, he performed his song “Giant Slide” on Jimmy Kimmel Live after the city’s giant metal slide was briefly closed following safety complaints.
“To ride that new slide, you gotta take a Tylenol. If your kids piss you off, get ’em on it,” he raps in the song’s chorus.
Parker said the city spent $400,000 in municipal funds to pay Detroit-based Fairmount Sign Company for the sign, the Free Press reported. The sign’s letters are eight feet tall and rest on two-foot concrete blocks, according to the city.
In 2013, Detroit filed the largest Chapter 9 municipal bankruptcy on record, defaulting on more than $600 million in loans. The bankruptcy filing wiped out about $7 billion in debt, and the city’s financial situation has since improved.
In March, Moody’s, a credit rating research agency, upgraded the city’s municipal bonds to investment grade for the first time since 2009.
Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan previously told Business Insider that he hoped hosting the NFL Draft would show people how far the city has come since he took office in 2014.
“The last time the country paid attention to Detroit was 10 years ago when we were bankrupt,” Duggan told BI. “These images of blacked out street lights, absent police and devastated communities have remained etched in the minds of many people.”
“We view the draft as a chance to reintroduce Detroit to America and the world,” Duggan added.
Fairmont Sign Company did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
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