Being on the same label as Migos and Lil Yachty, Young Greatness was looking to have the same crossover success following his run in 2016.
His breakout single “Moolah” earned him a gold plaque, he toured opening for Kevin Gates, and he even found himself being co-managed by Akon. Then, the New Orleans rapper just disappeared.
Questions regarding his label status came up after a Billboard interview with Birdman last February revealed that Mr. Theodore Jones was now signed with Cash Money.
“We got new artists like The Money Man, Young Greatness,” Birdman told Billboard. “You know Drake, Nicki [Minaj], Wayne coming with their projects. This year, I wanted to break some new talent.”
HipHopDX Associate Producer Ural Garrett spoke with Young Greatness about leaving Quality Control and lessons he learned from his time there.
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“First of all, there’s no ill will between me, Coach K and P so let’s just clear that out,” said Young Greatness. “Sometimes when you do business, you have different opinions in the way we see things and sometimes, things aren’t meant to work. God has his own plan for you. I feel like with that situation, it wasn’t God’s plan for me. You can never question God’s judgment.”
But he didn’t leave the Atlanta-based label without learning anything.
“As a label on a whole, it’s an excellent label to be on,” he said. “They have a lot of talent over there. One thing I learned being over there was that you have to earn your keep. That’s what I did. I did that and in less than a year, I made one of the biggest songs the label had and sold a lot of units — over 800,000 to be exact. That’s one of the biggest things I learned was in competition, you have to focus on what you have to do and not what the next person is doing. That’s what molded me into who I am today.”
Speaking of his new home at Cash Money, he said talks of his move to the label began while he was at QC.
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“It was already genetically there,” he explained. “One of my cousins worked for Mannie Fresh when I was a kid. In my family, it was already in their head for me to eventually go there. It was their vision for me. I choose my own path with my career. Once things appeared to the public that things were kind of shaky with my situation. Slim reached out before Baby and wanted to talk to me about my situation. I was actually still on Quality Control at the time. They were willing to work with them to go further considering the fact that I was from New Orleans. They just wanted to see somebody from the city win. We weren’t able to put it together then. A few months after that, that’s when both of them collectively took me to the home team.
Despite Cash Money churning out some of music’s greatest artists both past and present, the label hasn’t had the best reputation in the last several years, including the high-profile rift between Lil Wayne and Birdman.
Regardless, that didn’t matter to Young Greatness.
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“At the end of the day numbers don’t lie,” he said. “People can say what they want, they talked about Jesus. That shit really don’t matter. It’s about what’s on black and white. Numbers don’t lie. Cash Money was one of the labels that set the tone for the whole rap game and you can never deny history. They put up major numbers and their artists are the number one artists in the game. When you look at that versus the he-said/she-said, it’s about the facts. Fuck what they talken about. I was always the one who never gave a fuck about what people say. Birdman this and Cash Money that. I don’t give a fuck about that. That’s what you have managers and lawyers for. Let them handle the business. You just stick to being a great artist and putting out good content.”
Enjoying a new label home and plans to release a new project in the upcoming months appropriately titled Bloody Summer, expect Young Greatness to be working overtime with his career refresh.
“To be honest with you, I feel like I’m starting all the way over,” he said. “And, I’m cool with that because me coming from last year, I feel like I earned everyone’s respect. I came in and did numbers. I feel like I have to start back over because I have to prove it to them again. So, this time I’m going to shove it in their face even harder. You going to get a lot from me this summer. Right now we’re going through a major problem because I have so many singles. It’s kind of hard to choose which one it’s going to be right now. I got a lot of dope records. I’m excited about the summer. It might be this record I got called “We Rollin.” It’s real big and a nice summer record. It’s a great play off of ‘Moolah.’ So be ready.”
