Rapper 2 Chainz owes most of his success to Lil Wayne, and the "We Own It" emcee couldn't praise his hip-hop mentor enough in a recent interview with Power 105.1's The Breakfast Club.
According to the College Park native, Weezy had total faith in his rap potential (even during the hard times):
"I been rockin' with Wayne since forever. I know people say 'real' and all that stuff all the time, but I just feel like he's one of the realest people in the game. He still has a crazy work ethic and we've been working on this project really our whole life, but really just saying we were going to put out a project for like a year. Great feedback - it's my album, but its like [Raekwon & Ghostface]," radio host Angela Yee finishes for the B.O.A.T.S. II: Me Time superstar.
Chainz then continues with that thought in regards to his latest project with Wayne entitled ColleGrove:
"That's definitely what this is, I'm a huge Wu-Tang fan, Raekwon, then you had Only Built for Cuban Linx. It was really Raekwon's album, but it had Ghostface on the cover. It was epic, so for this album it's a dedication to my brother, one of my favorite rappers of all time and it was fun. Just imagine being in the studio - it was just fun creating this project."
The collaborative album was released earlier this month to mostly positive reviews. And Chainz couldn't thank Tunechi enough for allowing him into this world of entertainment:
"That blessing which came from God, but came through Lil Wayne - it changed my life because it gave me a taste of shows, the life, something that I wanted to be a part of. When I went on tour with him and was able to see his work ethic and see what it took to get to this level, which I acknowledge every chance that I get - it changed the way I looked at music," he muses. "I was playing with it at first - you can't play with this music. I owned a studio and wasn't using it every day. That changed after '08. Ever since '08 I've been doing music every single day of my life - whether its recording something musically every day of my life, and I've enjoyed the fruits of my labor from it."
So, why did Chainz never actually join the YMCMB crew? It all comes down ruffling feathers with Def Jam Records, and he's happy with his current situation:
"Because I was being loyal to 'Cris [Ludacris] and Dolla. You know what I'm saying, it was a situation where I didn't want it to be like I was clique hoppin at the time. I swear that was my answer - it ain't like I didn't want to. It was like I was working on another Playaz Circle project, I really felt like this could work, you know what I'm saying? Deep down I'm thinking that these records cold, I'm listening to what everybody like, and like any other artist, you compare and contrast. I'm like our bars up to par, our production up to par, but it never clicked and the dots never clicked fan wise. It did on the underground level, but not on a mass level."
Check out the full interview below:
