 Baby flew me out to LA, I was in Beverly Hills at the Peninsula Hotel, and it was an incredible time. Me and him did some songs together. I was out in Miami at the Hit Factory. Here we on Boss Talk 101, here we gonna talk. And I remember at one point being in class, and I got good grades in school because I was doing anything to please the people around me thinking that that was gonna change. Like if I brought straight A's home, maybe they gonna stop using drugs. You know what I'm saying? So I would do whatever I could, and I finished my work early, and I'm just writing, I'm writing a song. And my teacher saw what I was doing. She knew I wasn't, she thought I wasn't finished, so she took my book, you know. And she, when she read it, she was like, well I want you to go and stay this in front of the class as if it was something that I was gonna be scared of. And that was the first time I remember performing in front of a class. And what I wrote about was, you know what was going on in my household. And I was very, very young. And the class was like very emotional. So there was some people who didn't even, like we didn't even know each other like that in school. But after that, a lot of people, it was like they gravitated towards me. Supporting. Yeah, yeah, like damn, telling me what was going on in A house and all of that shit. The teacher apologized. We had a different type of relationship because of it. So music has always been something that kind of drew people to me. Cause I'm, you know, I told you, I don't even really like doing interviews. I don't like speaking that much. I'm a loner, but it brings people closer to me when I share, you know, part of it. What I hear you talk is like, it's like what God showed you was that you're a leader. And what you said helped a lot of those kids in that class. And that's, and you didn't even know it, the magnitude of what was about to happen and neither did that teacher. Absolutely not. And that's, that's powerful because that's what happens a lot of times. I think that's what happened with Joseph when his brothers did that wrong to him in the word. And it was like, what you meant for evil for me, God, I'm turning to good. Yeah. You know, you meant that it's the evil thing. That's the fact. God changed that and it could a good thing and it helps so many people cause he ended up helping a whole impoverished land. But that's the way it be. Like we be thinking we, we the God in life but God is a God in life for us and we just be talking. So she probably just like Steve Harvey said, you ain't gonna never be on TV as teacher told him, boy, go sit down back there and turn this paper. And, and, and she, what she's saying is motivating the situation and igniting the flame in somebody that's not going to go out. So that's, when that happened to you, like after those kids came to you just talk to them, didn't you? Yeah. I mean, I was always, I don't have a problem with sharing but I have a problem with over sharing. So, you know, I'm not the one that's going to initiate it but I'm an open book, you know what I mean? So I understood my role very early on and music played a big part in that because I feel like I can have a better conversation through my music than I can, you know, just verbally. You know what I mean? So I knew what, I felt like I knew what my purpose was very, very early. Wow. And, and so after that incident, and it was a great experience actually, but after that happened, how long was it before you did something else? I mean, it never stopped. So you, after that you just kept writing? I remember there was this show, I don't think I, I don't know if I was saying this before. That was, I don't know, I was in elementary school. So yeah, that was really early. But because of that, and like I said, the teacher, she was impressed. She was impressed. So there was, y'all know Hoda Copy? Yeah. Okay, so Hoda Copy, I believe is from New Orleans, but I know that she had a TV show in New Orleans. And I think it was called like Hard Copy with Hoda, some shit like that. And soon after she came to the school and she did some type of editorial or whatever on the school, the particular school. And my teacher had me rapping. So that was the first time I was on TV on Hoda Copy's show when it was gone off. You know, I'm rapping with a credit. So it never stopped. It never stopped. And they saw your gift. Everybody saw your gift. Yeah. That's good. Man, I think like you being from New Orleans, early on you ended up signing the cash money. Mm-mm, mm-mm, no, no, no, I've had, I've had a lot of- Did they try to reach out to you? Yeah. Well that's, you're talented. I've worked with, I've worked with Baby, I've worked with Wayne, I've worked with Juvenile. Who else? I mean, cash money in general. From early on. Yeah, yeah, from early on. You've been exposed because of all of that. But why did you not sign to it? I think it's important, independence is important. You know what I mean? And you knew that even back then. Yeah, and I'll tell you why. When you come from a place, I think a lot of the, even the trust issues, some of the toxicity that I learned prevented me from doing certain things too. Because of the trust issues, because of the foresight, you know what I mean? And at that time, like one of my, Baby flew me out to L.A. I was in Beverly Hills at the Peninsula Hotel, you know, and it was an incredible time. Me and him did some songs together. I was out in Miami at the Hit Factory and I was working with Timbaland at the time and I saw Baby and Slim. And they knew I was from New Orleans. So they was trying to get me from Timbaland. So it was a lot of things, but I also understood, you know, I'm telling y'all some deep shit about the things that I've experienced, you know what I mean? And a lot of times, this is the music business. That shit that I'm sharing is a part of me and that's a part of my message. But when you enter into certain realms, they don't give a fuck about none of that. So I didn't want my, what I wanted to do, this thing that had really saved me to become this thing that was just about money. I wanted to be able to put my shit out the way that I wanna put it out and not have to censor it or become this other person just because this is the metrics. You know what I mean? And I do pretty well for myself as an independent artist. So my thing was just like maintain my integrity, maintain my voice, maintain my uniqueness, don't let somebody just come in. And plus the contracts was fucked up. So I'm not saying that I wouldn't sign. It wasn't anything that you were impressed with. Yeah, I'm not saying that I wouldn't sign because I definitely would and I have, I actually signed to Universal Records for a brief period of time with Russell Simmons, but that was a very, very unique deal. Russell Simmons gave me a licensing deal. So I was able to still own all of my music. Yeah, and with that, I gained a relationship with him and then I gained a relationship with Steve Rifkin, but they didn't take my music. And you know what I mean? They still gave me 100% control over creativity, but they was able to place my music and place my name in rooms that I wasn't able to get in yet. So that was more important to me than to sign with somebody just for the sake of signing. But what you said is some dope, but to even have the understanding of contract being like it was shady or it didn't, if it violated your publishing, if it violated things that you really felt secured to, but how did you understand how to even see that that was what was going on? Because I was smart enough to get an attorney. Okay, but a lot of people not. And some people get them, but a lot of people are not. Sometimes those attorneys are crooked too. I learned stories about that too. Absolutely, I just know I'm favored. I got a lot of favor on me. You know what I mean? I'm not the most religious person at all. Like I'm from the streets and we didn't get into that, but like there was a certain point of time where I kind of followed in the footsteps of my parents and started getting in trouble. I was going to ask you about that. We go back into it because I really, I like to, I jumped into that cash money game cause she spoke of it, but I really do want to hear the backstory because it's so important to the people to hear, okay, this is 3D9T phase one, phase two. You know, and it's important because some little girl out there, it's got a dream. You know what I mean? Some little dude out there is trying to figure it out. And the thing that you say amplifies what's in them to help them. That's what this podcast is about.