S. Samuel
After Lil Wayne spilled the beans on a new Big Tymers album being in the works, Cash Money Records head Birdman confirmed the buzz and said his ex-labelmate Mannie Fresh would not take part in the project.
According to Baby, Young Money’s Drake will snatch Mannie’s spot in the Big Tymers semi-reunion effort.
But everyone wants to know: Will Mannie Fresh be involved? “No. Nah. Not at all,” Birdman confirmed when he appeared on a special episode of “RapFix Live” in Miami on Wednesday (May 8). Nothing for the project has been recorded yet. Actually, it just started as an idea, but according to Wayne, it is definitely on the way and all parties involved seem pretty excited, including Drake, who wasn’t present for the interview. “You can’t even tell him an idea,” Wayne said of Drizzy. “I just told him that we were thinking about it, and he just hit me and said, ‘We’re lookin’ for some music today.’ ” (MTV)
In January 2012, Fresh detailed his issues with Birdman’s Cash Money empire.
“We still have money issues. We will always have them, as long as Cash Money is selling anything that has Mannie Fresh on it. ‘Til this day, I’m like, “Dude, what’s going on? Where are the statements for this?” There’s always some kind of complication, that’s all I can say,” Fresh said in an interview. “Everybody has to get paid. It would be something large if Cash Money did a tour with the first generation of artists, but with everything that’s happened, we need money upfront and on top of that we all need our own attorneys. You don’t get my money and pay me-I get my money directly.” (Billboard)
Months prior, he blamed Cash Money for botching a potential longstanding relationship with Def Jam.
“I got this deal with Def Jam through Jay-Z,” Fresh said during the Red Bull Music Academy 2011 in Madrid. “Jay-Z reached out, he was like, ‘I’ll do a deal with you. You come to Def Jam and you do your thing. And I’m over there and I talk to Lil Wayne. I’m like, ‘Hey dude, I got a deal with Def Jam and they pretty much are going to give me my situation, do what I want to do.’ They were like, ‘Just deliver a big song.’ So I go to Lil Wayne, he does the song with me and soon as I get ready to put it out, Cash Money shuts it down. They were just like, ‘Nah, you didn’t get permission from us to do that.’ And I’m like, ‘Wow, it’s really that serious? That’s kinda ugly of y’all to do that.’ And I’m like, ‘Wayne agreed to do the song.’ And they were like, ‘Well, Wayne can’t speak for Wayne. We speak for Wayne.’ … So that was a learning lesson for me and it kind of gave Def Jam a salty taste too because they was just like, ‘Every time we do something, if it’s going to get shutdown, we really don’t want to do this with you.'” (Red Bull Music Academy)
Back in 2010, Mannie discussed his issues with label boss Birdman.
“This is why Mannie Fresh don’t f*ck with [Cash Money] because he never got any royalty money,” he said in an interview. “That’s why Baby can go around flaunting this cash, because that’s everyone else’s money… It’s not even Wayne’s fault. Wayne is not getting money. He is given money, he’s not getting money. If Baby gets a million dollars he’ll buy Wayne a Phantom, but that’s in Cash Money’s name. That 14-bedroom mansion isn’t Wayne sh*t. That’s why he have his own company, because he was trying to leave Cash Money and the only thing that would keep him there was [if they] gave him his own thing. But Baby still controls that. All those Young Money artists don’t even know that they not getting royalty money.” (VIBE)
