Fayetteville, North Carolina lyricist Rain shares his reaction to the announcement of a partnership between J. Cole’s Dreamville imprint and Interscope Records. In an exclusive conversation with HipHopDX, Rain says that he was excited to hear that Cole—who also hails from Fayetteville—is launching a record label, but was disappointed that no other artists from the North Carolina city were included on the roster.
“Anybody coming from [Fayetteville, North Carolina], I’m excited about,” Rain says. “I’m always pushing for people from The Ville to do they thing. So I was excited when he announced Dreamville, and I was disappointed when I realized there was nobody from The Ville on the label. That’s my personal opinion.”
At the time of announcement, Chicago artist Omen; Boston’s KQuick; and Queens by-way-of Paris emcee, Bas were initially associated with Dreamville. Rain believes that there are number of talented emcees from Fayetteville, North Carolina and that artists from the same area should support each other.
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“I saw an interview where they asked him if there was anybody from The Ville that he liked and he didn’t mention anybody,” he says. “To me, that’s confusing because there’s a lot of talent out there. I can go down the list and name a bunch of people that’s doing their thing. That’s the disappointing thing, man, because we’re from The Ville. We’re supposed to be putting on for each other and doing what we gotta do for each other. That’s just me being his brother. So as your brother, if you see something going wrong, I’m gonna speak on it. So it ain’t too late to tighten that up.
“Not to say even me, because we spoke about that before,” Rain continues. “We’ve had those conversations before. But there’s a lot of people there that are really dope that deserve a shot. You see people from Atlanta, Georgia; California; New York and when they get on, they put people on. You see [French Montana] doing his thing then you see [Chinx Drugs] right behind him. You see different people and they’re getting on and putting people on that’s been around them from the beginning or been around them grinding through the trenches. You always wanna see people put on people from their town. You see [Kendrick Lamar] and [ScHoolboy Q]. It’s a thing that’s supposed to happen, even if your man ain’t the nicest. It’s supposed to happen so it kind of confuses me.”
Rain Plans To Launch Live Fast, Die Young Entertainment
J. Cole and Rain have worked together. In 2009, Rain released “Come Home To Me,” which was produced by J. Cole. That same year, a video was released of the Fayetteville artists working together in the studio.
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“Do y’all know that everything that I’m just now doing—the Tony Touch shit, The Green Lantern, even the [DJ Enuff] shit tonight—everything that I’m doing, Rain, either he already did or he’s doing,” J. Cole says in the video. “And he don’t have no deal. He was in XXL way before me. That’s big…I was home about a month ago. I dropped some beats off to Rain. He hit me up the next day, literally. I probably never met a harder working rapper.”
Rain says he plans to launch Live Fast, Die Young Entertainment and aims to give “people from The Ville a shot.” He also announces the title to his next album.
“The new album coming out, A Perfect Day To Die,” Rain says. “I swear to God it’s a movie. It’s a movie. If you liked Live Fast, Die Young, this is that with more aggression. I got more to talk about. I got better stories and I’m getting better and I’m more confident. I got a good team behind me and we’re getting better day-by-day.”
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