Over a chopped-up, wailing sample, Yo Gotti’s The Art of the Hustle begins with a proud proclamation: “I’m the hustler’s constitution,” he raps on the album intro, apathetically. It’s a fitting start to the Memphis emcee’s seventh album, which is poised to propel him to rap’s upper echelon while remaining laser focused on his roots.
No knock to Drake, but Yo Gotti is truly a rookie and a vet. While flash-in-the-pan artists have come and gone, Gotti’s slow-and-steady career trajectory has continued to bubble over nearly a decade and a half. His grassroots approach to touring — performing in Southern cities that peers considered too small — and prolific mixtape output has helped the stocky 33-year-old rapper emerge as a people’s champ whose star is only shining brighter. He brought his CMG imprint to Epic Records in 2013 and dropped the Sha Money XL-executive produced album I Am, his most successful project to date, that same year. Certified turn ups like “F-U,” “Act Right” and “LeBron James” have placed Gotti among the heavyweights who rep below the Mason-Dixon. But he’s not leaning on his laurels.
“Every album is a separate entity,” Gotti says from his home in Memphis. He’s never taken a break from recording since I Am, even through the album’s release and touring, yet he has a defined vision for his next project. “I want to always keep my albums fresh and exciting, pulling the fans in so they actually live their story and their album through [me]. From album to album, I try to come up with something totally different.”
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The Art of the Hustle, which is slated for release either late this year or early 2015, finds the man born Mario Mims continuing his cocksure bravado (“If you the realest nigga, who am I?” he asks on the solemn “Who Am I”) but also opening up and letting listeners into his back-story in the streets. Most importantly, Yo Gotti, whose itchy palms are involved in real estate and his own M-Town restaurant, Privé, gives you a 101 on the hustling laws that have governed his own prosperity. Take notes.
Yo Gotti Explains How The Art Of The Hustle & The Art Of War Intersect
HipHopDX: Your next album, The Art of the Hustle, is a play off Sun Tzu’s classic book, The Art of War. Are there parallels between the album and the book?
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Yo Gotti: Yeah. I feel like with The Art of War there’s rules and strategies and laws and different things to be a successful hustler. It’s like a talent. You don’t see a professional basketball player that doesn’t practice. You see the game but you don’t see behind the scenes. So I feel that same strategy with hustling. It’s more than just waking up and thinking you want to get some money or thinking you want to be successful. What are you actually doing to make yourself successful? What steps are you taking? What strategies are you doing? What laws are you living by?
DX: Are there any rules or principles that you specifically relate to from The Art of War?
Yo Gotti: Books like The Art of War and The 48 Laws of Power, I think each individual person should read it. Because each individual person is supposed to take out of them books what applies to them. Not necessarily everything, because there may be certain rules and laws that don’t apply to you or you don’t agree with. But it’s good to know them because you can use it as a defense instead of an offense. At least if you know what it is you know how to see it coming. When you read them books, it isn’t just for you to follow the steps. It’s for you to be aware of what the steps are. You use what applies to you and what you don’t agree with, you don’t have to.
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DX: Moving on to The Art of the Hustle—what would you say is your number one rule to hustling?
Yo Gotti: Whatever your hustle is, at the end of the day you’re working toward making money. But me personally, I don’t value money the way that people do. You can’t move me or make me do something with a check or a certain amount of money. It don’t mean that much to me. Winning means something to me. Whatever comes with the money, whatever the reward is — I like to win. People hustle wrong when they just hustle for money. Because if the plan is to go right but a certain amount of money makes you go left, to me, you fucked up the overall plan. So money don’t move me. Money don’t control my hustle. It’s just what the plan is. I feel like I’m going to get money regardless.
Yo Gotti Explains How The Art Of The Hustle Is His Life
DX: How else are you planning on bringing people into your story on this album? Last time we spoke you mentioned being raised by your aunts and them all having deep street ties. Do you expand on that on this album?
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Yo Gotti: Yeah, of course. This whole Art of the Hustle album gives you my rules and strategies to hustling but it’s really giving you my life story, going deeper into it to show you where I come from, how I got to be this person I’m meant to be, what my family has been through. Being raised by six women. Seeing women go to the feds and do 10-15 years because they accepted their roles in what they were doing and didn’t tell on nobody. When they could’ve took the easy route they didn’t. And these are women. I know in today’s time and [earlier], there’s a lot of dudes out here who wouldn’t do the same. So these dudes softer than women out here. So you hear me touch on that a lot. I know women who are realer than dudes. So my auntie, momma, all of these people, I’ve seen them stand up for what they were doing and what they believe in and how they were raised.
DX: But the album isn’t entirely about the streets and hustling. You’ve got a record called “Patience” that touches on relationships.
Yo Gotti: Yeah, “Patience” was speaking to a woman about having patience even without me being patient with you [Laughs]. Me trying to have patience, telling her to have patience. Because when you live this fast life, every day you gonna move to different cities. To really understand me, you have to have patience.
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DX: You want to put Jhené Aiko on that record, right?
Yo Gotti: I feel like she’s the right person to put on it. We haven’t actually got her to cut the record yet, but that’s most definitely something that we’re trying to get done.
DX: Did you take anything away from the rollout, creation and release of I Am that you’re going to roll over and apply to this album?
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Yo Gotti: I think the last album we did a good rollout, with going on tour before the album and just putting all of the performances together leading up to it. But I also think every album is a separate entity. I feel like what I want to do for this album is not what I have done for my last album. I want to always keep my albums fresh and exciting, pulling the fans in so they actually live their story and their album through [me]. From album to album, I try to come up with something totally different.
Yo Gotti Describes Lil Wayne’s Verse On The “Errybody” Remix
DX: What made you enlist Lil Wayne and Ludacris for the “Errybody” remix?
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Yo Gotti: Well, I always heard Wayne on it from when I first done it. I was thinking about putting him on the original version. When I went on tour with him, on the Drake Vs. Wayne tour, I spoke to him about it. He knocked the verse out and killed it. I actually had his verse for a minute, because I was trying to see who else I wanted to put on it. I wanted to come different; I didn’t want nothing that people were going to expect. Some of the people you see me work with all of the time, I feel like people could predict that I would put one of them on the remix. I didn’t want to do that. And then, after hearing Wayne’s verse over and over again, I’m like, “Man, who could do a verse that’s gonna be on the same level?” And that’s how I came up with Luda. I never heard a wack verse from Luda. Ever. Since he been in the game [Laughs]. So I was like, Luda would kill that shit. And I’ve never done a record with him. So to me, both of those components made sense.
Yo Gotti Thinks Ferguson Happens Everywhere & Talks T.I.’s Hustler Mentality
DX: You appear on The Game’s Mike Brown tribute “Don’t Shoot” in August and mention on the track that you’ve spent a lot of time in St. Louis.
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Yo Gotti: Yeah, St. Louis embraced me early in my career because it’s only like four hours from Memphis. So it’s one of them cities where you always be back and forth. And early in my career, my managers lived in St. Louis, so I spent a lot of time out there. You know how that go, you meet a couple girls out there, one thing lead to another [laughs]. In Memphis, they don’t have a lot of exotic car lots. St. Louis got the Lamborghini lot, Bentley lot, Rolls Royce lot. So I actually used to buy all my cars from there, too.
DX: You also say on the track that you know how people feel in St. Louis, given the circumstances. Had you ever experienced overt racism in the city?
Yo Gotti: I wouldn’t say I experienced racism in St. Louis. It’s more so saying, I understand the frustration or the pain, period from the situation. To me, it don’t even matter where it happened. If it happened in Memphis, you’d probably see the same reaction. If it happened in New York, you’d probably see the same reaction.
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DX: You’re good friends with T.I., and he has his show The Family Hustle on Vh-1, which is ultimately another hustle. Could you ever see yourself doing that type of show?
Yo Gotti: I think T.I. is hustling. I know T.I. is hustling, because I know him. And he’s a family person. I’m a family person. A lot of us are family persons in our regular day-to-day life, he’s just showing it through his show. So it’s normal. It ain’t like he’s trying to do something that’s not him.
DX: But do you think you could put your life on TV in that type of way?
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Yo Gotti: I don’t know. I think you have to get to that space mentally first. I don’t know if I’m in that space yet. Just the way I’m moving around and the way my mind operates right now, I probably ain’t ready for that.
Yo Gotti Gives His Thoughts On The “New Atlanta”
DX: Atlanta is having an interesting moment right now. There’s a new wave of artists making noise, from OG Maco to Young Thug, Father, ILoveMakonnen, Rich Homie Quan, Migos. What do you make of the New Atlanta?
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Yo Gotti: Man, I’m from the South so you know, that ain’t nothing new. Atlanta always has a moment. Atlanta is putting out different artists all the time, if you just do the research and go back. Atlanta always comes with different sounds and different artists. That shit just normal out here [Laughs]. You always seeing three or four artists popping out of Atlanta at the same time.
DX: You’ve got your own lineup of new faces that are bubbling in their own right, too. What’s the latest with CMG?
Yo Gotti:CMG is the brand. Wave Chappelle, that’s one of my new artists. He got some good stuff coming up, man. He’s very talented. He’s just staying in the studio, putting in that work. Snootie Wild, his record is top 10 right now. “Made Me,” featuring K Camp. There’s also a remix out with Jeremih and Boosie. His EP is in stores right now, Go Mode. Other than that, we working. Trying to get it, you feel me.
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