As was first reported here at HipHopDX last week, Jae Millz has signed to Lil Wayne’s Young Money Entertainment label [click here to read]. And yesterday the 24-year-old Harlem native spoke exclusively to DX about the deal that has put Jae Millz name back on the tips of the tongues of everyone in the Hip Hop universe.
“I just got back to New York two days ago, and the talk is crazy,” Millz keenly noted of the buzz surrounding his deal with Weezy. “I’m on the Internet. I’m on Youtube. I’m listening to Hot 97 and Angie Martinez and Miss Info talking about me. I like this! I like the talk. I ain’t gonna lie, this shit is fun.”
The real fun for the emcee known as “Tha Statue” began with his receiving the formal stamp of approval from the hottest emcee in the game. “Toward the end of ‘07 I had holla’d at [Lil] Wayne to get on [the] “Holla At A Playa” remix,” Millz began, recalling how he first connected with Weezy. “He was like, ‘Sure no problem, send me the beat and the song so I can follow your lead.’ I sent it to him and no lie he sent me the joint back in a couple days. He sent it back to me before I even had a verse [done] for the shit.”
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Millz and Wayne subsequently kept in contact with one another while the President of Young Money Entertainment was on the road touring. Eventually their conversation turned to Millz, who had previously been signed to both Warner Bros and SRC/Universal Records, current status as a free agent, a standing Wayne was apparently unaware of according to Millz, “He was like, ‘Man, I still thought you was on Universal. Well, when can you come down to Miami?’”
Young Mula flew the man behind the successful singles “No, No, No” and “Who” down to Miami that very next day during the first week of January. And after his people escorted Millz from the airport to the studio, within 20 minutes the Southern superstar had offered the New York battle emcee a deal. “[After that] he gave me a pound and said, ‘Let the lawyers figure out everything else,’” said Millz. “I stayed down in Miami for a week with him, and then I came back up to New York. But I was still keeping [the deal] low. This was in January, we in March now. People just found out [about my signing] last week at the show in Newark when he was like, ‘Millz, put ya hand in the air.’” [click here to watch]
Millz agreement with Birdman Jr is not a joint venture between his indie recording home, Wanna Blow Entertainment, and Young Money, but rather a solo deal for Tha Statue. “It’s a Jae Millz situation, but anything I ever do, it’s always gonna be Wanna Blow tied to it,” Millz explained. “That’s who I came in the game with.”
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Since signing on the dotted line with Young Money, Millz has gone to Las Vegas to appear in the video for “Lollipop,” the first single from Wayne’s highly anticipated The Carter III album, due next month, held Weezy down at his recent court appearance in Phoenix, and rolled with his new label boss to the Grammy’s last month.
And while Wayne is currently touring in Europe, Millz has returned to NYC to bask in the media frenzy surrounding his new deal. “I just came from Atlanta,” he noted of his most recent contact with Weezy. “We just did 8 songs in 4 days. We got heat, man. We got a lot of heat.” Some of that heat might land on The Carter III, a Young Money compilation due this summer, or Millz forthcoming mixtape Zone Out Season Part 2: Welcome To Young Money, hosted by Lil Wayne, which is the follow up to Part 1 [click here to listen].
One project those 8 recordings with Wayne are unlikely to appear on is Millz currently untitled Young Money debut. “Right now I’m not even thinking about [my album],” he revealed. “I’m not even focused on the album. I don’t really think I need to put no album out right now. It ain’t about me right now, The Carter III about to come out and Wayne ‘bout to run this year. So it ain’t no need for me to jump in the middle of that, ‘cause I can’t compete with that.”
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Fans will get their first taste of Jae Millz as a Young Money recording artist soon enough though, when his “Holla At A Playa (Remix)” featuring Lil Wayne hits the streets within the next couple of weeks.
