S. Samuel
Grammy-winning rapper Lil Wayne will test out his executive producing skills in the near future by officially hooking up with Dipset's Juelz Santana for his upcoming Born to Lose, Built to Win solo album.
If all things go accordingly, Santana’s Weezy-executive produced effort will follow a couple of mixtape releases.
“I went out to Miami to chop it up with Wayne. I actually asked him to executive produce my album, Born to Lose,” Santana revealed Wednesday (December 5) when he sat on the red couch with MTV News correspondent Sway Calloway. It’s been seven years since the Dipset lyricist released his last solo album, What the Game’s Been Missing!, in 2005, and while Juelz makes no excuse for the long gap, he is ready to return to rap in a big way. First, Santana will drop two volumes of his upcoming mixtape series, God Willin’, the first of which he plans to release in January. After that, it’s album time, and working in tandem with Weezy has Juelz super excited. (MTV)
Last year, Santana predicted a winter 2011 release for his delayed solo effort.
“I’m going to give [the fans] a lot until my album, Born To Lose, Built To Win, which should be out at the end of December,” Santana revealed in an interview. “At the end of this year. I’m big dogging it this year. I’m dropping fourth quarter. Yerp.” (Real Hip Hop Daily)
A year prior, Def Jam VP of A&R Sha Money XL talked to SOHH about priming Santana’s LP.
“He’s touring and getting money,” Sha told SOHH. “He’s getting his money so he’s comfortable, he’s just creating the right music because he’s that next n*gga man. So he’s coming with it. It’s coming this year, we gonna drop this mixtape, The Reagan Era, he’s shooting some crazy videos — they on it right now, heavy, and I support them because he’s that next n*gga. I’ve contributed from records all the way down, man. He gets everything man, from the music to the marketing to the big picture, man. We gotta create stars, I don’t just leave them at the A&R Depot saying, ‘I’m done.’ I take it all the way there. It starts with the music and you know that’s what I do. That’s just one of the things that I’m great at, is the music.” (SOHH)
With the project now shelved for a few years, Santana previously told SOHH he would not rush it out.
“Born To Lose, Built To Win, that’s the name of my new album and I’m used to getting nothing and turning it into something,” Santana explained. “It ain’t no Def Jam delay, it ain’t no delay, I’m just waiting day-to-day, watching the game and paying attention. I ain’t wanna rush an album, I wanna keep it relevant, keep all the pieces right there. I’m just strategically doing things and I don’t want to just ‘drop’ an album. In this day and age, it feels like you gotta give people more so I want them to want for Juelz Santana to over succeed and oversee everything else, I really need to be there.” (SOHH)
Check out some recent Juelz Santana footage:
