Portland rap golden child Aminé would happily choose dinner with JAY-Z over $500,000, much like Ohio rapper Lon6z turned down $20,000 for a meeting with Boosie Badazz last month.
In his recent interview with Complex, Aminé discussed a myriad of topics including the creative process behind his recent TWOPOINTFIVE album, which cracked the Billboard 200 Chart last November.
While Aminé detailed his progression following the project, he also spoke about his relationship to his rapper peers in the music industry, revealing his desire to forge connections with artists such as Drake and J. Cole.
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“I don’t really have too many artists I look to for advice, to be honest with you,” he says. “I wish I did. I wish I had, like, a Drake or a J. Cole to tell me shit, but I’m not that close with them. We know of each other—we’ve met, and it’s good vibes, of course—but I’m not signed to an artist or anything, and no one has really taken me under their wing.
He continued, “It would be a dream. It’d be sick if Kanye West was like, ‘Yeah, man. What’s up?’” “I really want to meet JAY-Z. I don’t want the $500,000.”
However, despite his lack of connections with Ye and Cole, Aminé still has received some major cosigns and actually went on to describe a chance encounter with West Coast MC Kendrick Lamar, whom he says gave him his stamp of approval during an event at fashion week last September.
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“Kendrick walked up to me, and I wasn’t going to say, ‘What’s up,’ because I didn’t think he would know who I was, so I didn’t want to annoy him,” he recalled. “But he walked up to me, and he was like, ‘Yo, I fuck with the creativity in the videos. I really fuck with your shit.’ He was talking to me in a very serious voice. It was like Yoda telling you that you’ve got the right path or something. It was sick. I was at a loss for words.”
The moment was magnified by the fact Aminé and his friends had taken psychedelics that night, he revealed.
“We were all high on shrooms, so we were just like, ‘What the fuck?’ This is crazy,’” he said. “It was so much more of an intense thing because it was him. It was really funny.”
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As he mentioned, Aminé didn’t sign to another major artist after his breakout single “Caroline” become a trending hit in 2017 and has since delivered the majority of his releases via Republic Records.
His TWOPOINTFIVE album was distributed via the 27-year-old’s CLBN LLC imprint.
Aminé Explores Oregon's Foliage In Trippy 'Charmander' Video
Revisit the stream for Aminé TWOPOINTFIVE below.
