When I go in the studio, I go in there
to challenge myself.
You know what I'm saying?
I don't go in there and try to rhyme
the same words that dudes be rhyming
in every rap. And a lot of dudes
they get in there and they are rhyming they words
but they're not really saying nothing.
It's just a whole bunch of
mumbo, jumbo and this lyrical, byrical, chiracle, miracle.
You know what I mean?
Nobody want to hear that shit.
You know what I'm saying?
People wanna,
people wanna hear music that they get something.
You know what, people do want to hear that shit, but,
my audience, they want to hear something where
they could take something from, you know what I'm saying?
Not just hear a bunch of lyrical shit put together,
that don't mean shit.
"Legend" is the first song that we recorded
for 'Burden of Proof.'
This was my first time working with a producer like
Hit-Boy. I'm coming off like a good year.
And my next year was expected to be better.
So I understood what was going on.
And I just wanted to, you know what I'm saying,
I just wanted to express myself.
And that's how I was feeling.
I was feeling real legendary. To the people who's rooting
for me, and the people who watched me come
from where I came from, man, I already made it to them.
I'm a legend now, you know what I'm saying?
I inspire them enough, already.
Everything I rap about is the street life.
The things that I've been through, you know what I'm saying?
The things that led up to this point
I made her a worried soul.
You know what I'm saying?
She worried about me
and my brothers, and my friends and shit.
So, "Gave my life to the game,"
you know, that had my mama concerned,
but giving my life to the game, put me
in a position where I could talk about it on these records.
So that made her calm when she like, you know what I mean?
Like, okay, this what I mean, this
this is what's coming out of that, you know what I mean?
Man, sky's the limit.
You know, watching people around me achieve things.
You know what I'm saying?
Making me feel like I can achieve them.
You know what I mean?
Watching West do what he do, watching Conway do what he do.
You know what I'm saying? And these is my family
and watching them dudes reach certain heights,
put me in a mind frame where I didn't want half of it.
Half of it wasn't enough.
Know what I'm saying?
We coming for everything. You know what I mean?
And it's possible, and everything is
for the taking. Crib not furnished, like, okay
you get the crib, you get all that, the white picket fence
but you need a drop in there too.
We want everything.
We just not satisfied with just part of it went off.
We want everything, you know what I mean?
I feel like the best player who got drafted
in the seventh round because, you know
I kinda like made my rounds in this business before.
Not to the extent that I'm doing now
but I kind of been around during the mixtape era.
And I done opened up for a lot of these artists.
So a lot
of these artists, I done already crossed their paths.
It's just like the NFL shit.
It's like Tom Brady, he
didn't get drafted to the seventh round
but he was at the NFL combine with everybody else.
You feel what I'm saying?
He was there, so they got to, they got the measure him up
and see what he was going to be and draw idea of it.
They didn't, they wasn't right. You know what I mean?
They, they predictions wasn't right.
So I feel like that's my situation.
You know, people had an opportunity to fuck
with me for a minute, but they didn't.
They let me see what I was going to do.
And then when I came
in and did what I did, it was, it wasn't expected.
You feel what I'm saying, it wasn't expected.
I'm a seventh round draft pick.
You know what I'm saying I'm a 30 -something
year old guy from Buffalo,
New York rapping over East coast beats.
You know what am saying?
I got a whole city on my back.
You know what I mean?
I got my whole team on my back
and they trying to tell me like, wait 'til next year
you know what I'm saying?
To be called a legend
and to be accepted by a whole bunch
of people who don't even know me right now when
we did what we did for us.
And I'm saying, we legends, always, we gon' die legends.
You know what I'm saying? We legends right now, today.
A lot of people feel like I'm speaking for them, man.
You know what I mean?
And I love that when people telling me that like, "Yo,
I'm really in these situations, I heard how you said that.
Boom, boom, boom,"
that mean everything to me.
You know what I mean? I love the support.
I learned that lesson from being
around people who were successful,
more importantly, being around people
before they were successful.
And being around them and then watching them get money
then see how they, how they act.
Then I really got a certain amount
of money than I really seen it for myself.
I'm really still the same person.
It's just, you know, it's just amplified.
A lot of times people think having money equals
a person being real or equals a person being perfect.
Sometimes. You know what I'm saying?
People worship money.
Money don't make you a better person,
than the next person.
Sometimes you sign up for things
indirectly. You might want to go to a baseball game,
that don't mean you signed up for a foul ball flying at you.
You know what I'm saying?
So it was like, that's how marriage is.
You've married a girl.
It come with the in-laws.
You know what I'm saying?
That that's part of it.
You might didn't sign up for, to come with the in-laws.
Whether they be nice or nasty.
If you jump in this game, you know
this game that we play,
it's consequences and there's rewards.
And some things you signed up for indirectly.
Death is part of this.
And you got to know that when you jump in this shit
If you're an aspiring artists in the music world, right?
And you're trying to navigate your way through.
If it's a good decision to do with a label,
versus maybe not. Or if you don't know if,
the labels really got you back.
You got to do what you do with anything,
you skeptical about.
You gotta ask a million motherfucking questions.
You gotta call the people who got experience
in those types of things like,
"Yo, I've had to talk with these people.
What would you think about that?"
Or like, "Yo,
I had to talk with these people what you think about that?"
And they gonna tell you everything
you need to know.
And you gonna have the rundown
besides label execs just smiling in
your face telling you everything's gon' be perfect.
To my fans, I represent me and what I got going on,
and what I got, you know what I'm saying?
But you know, to the people who are trying to slight me,
"Man, he sound like, you know what I mean?
Oh, well, he only on because of this.
Well, if he didn't have this situation, he.."
You know that's what people who really not
your fans, who really don't support you.
That's the shit that they say. And basketball,
you know, people always have that talk.
You know, MJ fans, you know, they going to slight Kobe.
The LeBron fans, they're going to slight Kobe
but you know, Kobe did what he had to do for him.
He proved his legacy.
So you can't compare his legacy to nobody else's
but Kobe's because his path was different from Lebron's,
Mike's, Magic's, Bird's.
The session with Hit-Boy is like,
a rapper's producer because he already
got the beats for you that he have in mind.
You know what I'm saying?
He not just playing random shit.
The setting is always good.
When you come in there, I done bumped into Nas in there.
I done seen Big Sean in there.
I done seen Jhene in there.
I done seen T Grizzley in there, Dom Kennedy in there.
Like when, you know, it's that type of environment
you know what I mean?
You know, you know, this is the Staples Center,
you know what I mean?
You want to play accordingly.
It ultimately feels like I'm here for a reason.
I feel I got purpose.
You feel what I'm saying?
And that's a powerful feeling to feel,
you got purpose. To know,
that you wake up every morning for a reason.
You're not just here to wake up and chill.
"What we gonna smoke? What we gonna eat?
Im'a hang with..."
No, you know like, "Yo, I'm here for a reason."
I'm here to, I'm here to do something.
I'm here to change somebody's life.
Or I'm here to like make things better for my family.
Like, I'm really here for a reason.
If I don't do nothing,
if I never get a plaque on the wall, you know what I mean?
If I never sell another motherfucking record
I still made it out the hood.
You know what I'm saying?
And that's legend, and that's like I said,
that's enough for my people to be motivated
off and be inspired by, you know what I'm saying?
I played the record for Mal.
You know, man, I always play everything for Mal.
My boy Mal from the Joe Budden Podcast
you know what I'm saying?
We got a tight relationship and I played it for him.
He was telling me like, "Yo, that's
some of the best music I ever heard from you