T
hree years ago Lil Flip was the poster boy for the Houston rap scene. He had a new deal with Sony Music and was moving up the pop and Hip Hop charts with his singles “Sunshine” and “Game Over.” “Game Over,” which used the beat from the Namco Pac Man video game, quickly became the subject of conversation as Flip’s album climbed the charts. The owners of the music sued Lil’ Flip along with Sony, which eventually brought about the demise of their relationship.
For the next few years it seemed as though Flip disappeared from rap altogether. During his hiatus Swishahouse, led by Mike Jones and Paul Wall, branded their Houston sound throughout the country. Now with Houston superstars like Chamillionaire winning every award available to rap and Port Arthur natives UGK rising back to notoriety, Flip’s place in Hip Hop seems rather shaky. Now a few months from releasing his Asylum/Warner Bros. debut, Lil’ Flip tells OZONE why he was gone for so long and where he belongs in the rap world today.
Why did you decide to leave Sony and go to Asylum/Warner Brothers? It’s difficult when you’re a hard working artist and you get treated like you don’t want to work. This is the same label that had 50; he got shot and they let him go. Basically, a lot of people there have egos that are bigger then the work that they’ve put in. With Asylum I got the street muthafuckas that know rap but I also got Warner, which is a big record producer. I got the underground and the major pushing my album.
blackball be after they found out I was making beats. He would bob his head in my face but then he would run back to Sony talking ‘bout, “He’s making beats now!” So if Flip is making beats that means that A&R doesn’t have a job. I ain’t trying to produce my whole album just cause I make a few beats. I’ve never had anyone over my back telling me what I need to do. I always constructed my own music. I never had anyone saying, “Flip, you need to do a girl record.” I just always did what I felt.
You mentioned earlier that you had trouble keeping up with the staff. Look, I’ve got a million reasons I can be mad at Sony but that was definitely one of the major ones. I originally signed with Steve Rifkind’s Loud Records. After Loud folded Columbia had the option of deciding which artists they wanted to keep or get rid of. They ended up keeping me and I was introduced to a brand new staff. By the time I started getting cool with this new staff I got up a few months later looking for people. I’m like, “Where’s such-andsuch” and they’d say, “Oh, he ain’t over here anymore. He’s with Universal.” That shit just started getting annoying. They ended up placing me around new people who were responsible for getting my project done and some of those new people placed me in fucked up situations.
On that note, do you feel like Sony tried to keep you in the same lane? In other words, when you have a hit like “Sunshine” or “Game Over” they are only looking for that kind of record? Yeah. With Sony, first off, their track record when it comes to [rappers] ain’t even all that. They give up on an artist when you get close to three hundred [thousand records sold]. If you ain’t doing shows, and out in these streets, and spending your own money on yourself you’ll fucking drown with them. I mean, no disrespect, but look at an artist like Amerie. She only goes gold every time. She gets her one video, maybe two, and [Sony] is cool with that. I know she wants to sell more records, and she should. Sony isn’t helping her, or their other artists, do what they should be doing. The only artist that’s doing phenomenal on the label is Beyonce. Now that Three 6 Mafia won an Oscar I’m sure Sony will start paying attention to them. Now Sony will spend money on them and be like, “Oh, we love you.” But them niggas have been putting it down for so long and only now is Sony looking. Sony should have been looking at them a long time ago. [Sony] don’t respect nobody unless you’re Beyonce or maybe Nas.
What kind of situations? Take the “Game Over” situation. That whole lawsuit could have been avoided. I didn’t even want to do that song for a number of reasons. One, Beanie Sigel had already done a song with the beat called “Mac Man.” Two, there was a dude [in Houston] doing that exact same song. Three, I had been sitting on that beat for about six months. I’m not going to say the A&R’s name, but he kept calling me saying, “I know you don’t wanna rap on it, but I’ll pay you thirty grand. Don’t worry, we’re not gonna use it on anything important.” Shit, I’m a nigga from the hood and you talking ‘bout thirty grand. I jumped my ass on the plane and went on ahead and got [the thirty grand]. So yeah, I did the song, but I never really expected them to release it, or for it to get so big. Plus, peep what I did just in case they pulled some foul shit. I cuss so much on the beginning of the song that I never thought they would use it as a single. In the beginning of the song I start it off sayin’, “Aww shit, y’all done fucked up and let me in this bitch.” I was trying to say so many cuss words - I didn’t overdo it because it could have been worse. I did that shit so that it would not be my radio hit. But I’ll put this on everything - I did the song on a Monday and then I stayed in New York for four days. When I flew home on Friday that [song] was on the countdown. So you didn’t even expect “Game Over” to be on the album? I was just doing it because they begged me so much. They would not take no for a fucking answer so I finally agreed to do it. Plus, the agreement was that they wouldn’t use the song for nothing that I didn’t approve of. That was a lie. Then the lawsuit came behind that shit. The media hyped that shit up like I took the beat and then at the end of it all I didn’t have to pay. From every article that was out it seemed like you took the beat. Nah, Sony had to pay for all that shit. An A&R that worked for Sony is the one that brought me that beat. He didn’t clear that shit. He acted like he was on top of his business and he just wasn’t. That’s the first time I let an A&R pick some shit and look what happen, so now I don’t fool with that A&R shit anymore. A lot of them have ulterior motives. What do you mean by ulterior motives? I feel like Sony blackballed me. I’ve got songs with Destiny’s Child and Beyonce that we were supposed to shoot a video for but they won’t release it. You won’t let me shoot a video for that but you’ll allow someone I’m beefing with to shoot a video and do a song with them? Man, I’ve had A&Rs try to
Nas has criticized Sony in the past. Right. He got problems with them but he gets more respect off of seniority. I mean it probably ain’t all peaches and cream for him like he wants it to be but for the most part him and Beyonce are cool. So now you don’t have to deal with A&Rs at Sony picking your music. How did the new single with Lyfe come about? We shot the video for “What it Do” and did an uncut video. Then we were getting ready to shoot the video for “I’m a Baller” and halfway through is when I was starting to leave Sony. There were only about three or four people who knew I was leaving Sony so everyone was pushing “I’m a Baller.” When I got over to Asylum they tried to get “I’m a Baller” and send it to DJs but everyone was like, “I got this from Sony three months ago.” That was a big record. My first performance of the song scared me because when I went out there everyone in the audience already knew the words to the song. Warner decided they wanted to go with “Ghetto Mindstate” and I was kind of shocked. I was a little skeptical because it wasn’t a club record but it was testing well with programmers. So I just said, “Fuck it, let’s go with it.” I’ve always wanted to do music with Lyfe. I had heard about him before he had even got out of jail. I don’t put an artist on [a record] because they’re hot. I put people on my songs that I can feel. Did your album get leaked when you switched labels? I had to pay [Sony] two million dollars to leave, to take my album with me and buy myself out of contract. Right after I left somebody leaked the album. Usually your label sends out two or three singles but I was starting to notice that when I visited radio stations the DJs had the whole CD. This was three or four months before the album was supposed to come out. It was frustrating dealing with that and the beef I was going through, and that shit just pissed me off. I just said fuck rap for a minute. I’m not gonna put out an album that everyone has. I don’t even know how many people got the album. But when I’m out in the streets people were still telling me to put out the album and they were going to buy it anyway. So I went back in the studio and did 18 OZONE MAG // 57