of his game right now. That nigga ain’t gotta rap on other niggas’ beats just to get people to know that he can rap. He could take those same rhymes and put them on some indie shit on the site and get paid. Most of those independent [labels] are getting $7 or $8 per record, and a nigga like Jeezy right now can sell 50,000 independent records. Even if he just gets on a record and farts, we’re going to buy it. I think [the idea that artists need mixtapes to sell albums] is the attitude that these [DJs] want us to have.
And Jive ain’t on an island of their own. These muthafuckers [at all the record labels] were up there paying this dude [Drama] to do mixtapes on their artist. For a brand new artist that needs a street buzz and has never sold no records, that’s a great thing to do. Get them a DJ with a name, put a mixtape out, get people hyped on you, and then you’re able to get a deal. But for a nigga like me that likes money, and niggas buy my records anyway, I can’t fuck with it. I gotta get me some bread.
But I do think it’s dirty that record labels pay mixtape DJs to do a mixtape on an artist and then turn around and send the Feds to niggas’ studios to arrest them and fuck over ‘em like that. I think that’s some fucked up shit. I think it is very unfair that record labels are paying niggas like Drama to do mixtapes and then they turn around and sell a nigga out and throw him under the bus. That’s fucked up. If they’re going to turn their heads on [mixtape DJs] then they need to go ahead and turn their heads on the whole thing. I think it’s easier for them to condone the shit. [The record labels] are going to have to adjust their approach a little bit.
But at the end of the day, the same people that was paying Drama to do mixtapes send the Feds at him, and I think that’s real fucked up. I’m riding with Drama because they fucked over him. He ain’t doing nothing worse than what the record companies are doing; putting out records and trying not to pay the artist. If you see a nigga in the street who has sold 100,000 records and he
The first time we talked [about doing a UGK Gangsta Grillz mixtape] me and Drama had figured out a way for both of us to get paid. We ain’t gonna expose all the details of what we were talking about, but we came up with a way that both of us could get paid. We were going to do a Gangsta Grillz, mixtape style, but using beats that I produced. [Our record label] Jive was going to give Drama $10,000 to do our mixtape, and he was going to give us the $10,000 back. I said, “Nah, you keep the $10,000 and let’s do the mixtape over our beats, you host the muthafucker, we’ll walk in Jive and let them press up 100,000 or 150,000 copies and put it in the stores as a limited edition.” In a case like that, I can make Jive give me $100,000 [advance] and give Bun a $100,000 [advance].
So even though I don’t do mixtapes and all that, I still gotta ride with Drama because he’s a product of the streets. At the end of the day, fans don’t give a fuck about [the politics]. They just want to hear their favorite rapper. He was supplying the streets with the dope that they needed to keep going in between these weakass watered-down albums where they won’t let a nigga sample no muthafuckin’ records no more. And Drama is just the first example of what the Feds are going to do to a bunch of muthafuckers if they don’t get their game together.... - Julia Beverly
The rest of this interview is featured in the April issue of OZONE Magazine. Visit us online at www. ozonemag.com
If you want to settle for $10,000, that’s you. But me, I like advances. I like money. I don’t give a fuck about getting niggas on the street to like it. But even though I feel a certain way about the mixtape game, when it comes down to the RIAA vs. mixtape DJs, I’m riding with [DJs like] Drama. I’m never going to ride with the establishment. I support Drama because they threw him under the bus, and a whole bunch of these record labels were paying him to do their mixtapes. You and I both know we had the conversation because Jive was trying to pay him [to do a UGK Gangsta Grillz].
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