What's up everybody, it's your boy
Brian B-Mac Macintosh here with
BET Social and I'm with...
Tee Grizzley, and I'm pullin' up. Gank!
Aight man, so let's just get straight into it, man.
The new album, Activated ,
-is comin' out May 11th. -May 11th.
May 11th, how you feelin' man?
Feelin' good, I'm excited,
I can't wait for everybody to hear it, man.
Now what inspired that title?
The world just getting to know who Tee Grizzley is,
I know there'll be a difference
and the difference now, is I just feel like
I'm activated, I'm on, I can do
what I want to do now.
You know, I got more reach, you know.
I'm exposed to more stuff that I can do,
and I'm connected with more people,
I can network better,
just like, I'm activated now.
So are fans gonna get to see
a different side of Tee Grizzley on this album?
Definitely, on the My Moment
where I don't had no features,
and talkin' about a lot of Detroit stuff,
on Activated you gon' see me with features,
you gonna hear me talkin' about
a different variety of stuff,
but it's still me though.
What are some dope features that fans can expect?
Me and Yachty got somethin' crazy.
-Okay. I got somethin' with Jeezy.
-Jeezy? -Yeah.
Okay, you know he about to retire
-So that's gon' be dope, yeah. -Yeah.
Somethin' with Lucci,
Moneybagg Yo, Chris Brown.
-Chris Brizzy? Okay. -Yeah.
Just artists that I listen to, you know,
people whose music I like.
Now you just mentioned Moneybagg Yo,
the new single is wavy right now.
I heard it in the club when I was down in North Carolina,
had the club goin' crazy.
How did that record come about?
I had already recorded the song,
and I'm a Moneybagg fan, so
I'm like, damn I hear bro on this song,
he'll sound good on here.
I shout it to him,
he like, yeah I rock with that.
Send it back to me.
It's just been lit ever since.
First day out with Shoe's record,
you know, you spoke about how
you were locked up, and you know you done that
before, you been open about, you know
the charges you got,
that time in jail, how, you know,
it changed you. It made you wanna,
when you got out, you wanted to change things.
Did you really see yourself
being this successful sittin' right here in this moment,
when you were locked up, like
did you see all this happening?
I hoped for it, and I daydreamed about it,
and I always wanted it to happen.
You know, but I didn't think that
it was gonna happen actually,
I didn't think it was actually gon' happen.
Now there's a lot of black men
incarcerated right now.
Some aspiring rappers
would love to have the same success story
that you have.
What message do you have for them,
for anybody that's locked up right now,
that has a release date comin' soon,
what advice do you have?
It's different for everybody but,
one thing for sure is,
when you come home,
you gotta apply yourself to somethin' legal.
There's dudes who had ten years
who came home and started businesses.
And they real successful now like,
they inspired me, I was asking them,
dang when I come home, what you think I should do?
Nine times out of ten it gon' work,
because you been drug-free and you got that hunger in you,
like you need to hit the ground running.
Do you feel like false, fakeness goin' on
in the industry with other rappers?
I feel like rap is a sport.
And you know, each artist is his own team.
And everybody just want that title,
that championship, it's never like no animosity,
you know, I don't know a lot of rappers personally,
so I don't have a personal problem with them.
I don't got no problem with you bein' great,
-but I wanna be the best at it. -Absolutely.
So we all here at BET,
you know, this is your first time here,
What is your favorite BET memory as a kid
growing up watching the network?
I gotta lots a couple.
Aight, go ahead, it's a couple.
The funniest one, this ain't no disrespect but,
the funniest one was Waka had one on there
and they was askin' 'bout the politics,
you remember that?
[Laughter]
I do, shouts out to Waka, man.
Shout out to Waka.
Waka, like fresh out the streets,
he comin' on there talkin' 'bout politics, that was funny.
Master P and Lil' Romeo was on there.
And it was Lil Romeo's birthday.
Master P gave him a whole bunch of money.
-I remember that. -You remember that?
It was like a basketball court, was that him shootin'?
-That was him shootin'. -Yeah.
-That was him shootin'. -I liked that one.
I always wanted to go in there, see in there.
-It was exciting. -Yeah.
The 106th and Park, it was just exciting.
How did that moment feel when you
performed at the cipher for the Hip Hop Awards?
Like what did that moment mean to you?
That felt good, that was an accomplishment for me.
-For real? -That was a real accomplishment
like, for you to get on a cipher,
for you to even touch anything that got to do with BET,
that mean you out here as far as music goes.
As far as hip hop goes, if you touch anything BET,
then you lit.