How did you go from there to the situation with Yo Gotti and Cash Money?
[Gotti heard] some guy from Memphis playing my music in a barbershop. He reached out and from there we did an independent deal, which stated that we’d go find distribution and become partners in business. And we did that — we went and got the deal with Cash Money together. I thought it was a pretty good thing on the front end. [
Laughs]
It didn’t end up the way you planned …?
I mean, it’s spilled milk. I know it’s probably noteworthy to talk about but at this point it’s just lost time. I didn’t release an album, I didn’t shoot a video. I was featured on a couple of Cash Money releases – [Birdman & Lil Wayne's]
Like Father Like Son and one of those Birdman CDs [
5* Stunna]. I turned in 80 or 90 songs. I did some writing for stuff that never came out … but, you know, it was a launching pad and a learning experience for me. It taught me to tighten up my business, it taught me to go back to my independent roots. Now I’m probably way closer to that backpack full of CDs.
If you look at what Cash Money’s putting out now, it’s hard to imagine you being in with the likes of Drake and Nicki Minaj.
Yeah, I think when Wayne reached [a certain sales] plateau or whatever his music started changing. Over the time period that I was there he became the star of the label and they followed his lead. I could see how you’d say I wouldn’t necessarily fit into that. I hadn’t really thought about it as much like that because I spent the last year-and-a-half or two years either trying to get out of [the deal] or just excited that I was out of it.