 Izza Kizza | Slim Thug  |
I just continue to grind. And I focus on markets that I ain’t strong in. Kinda like how it [was] with the Obama campaign.
Less flamboyant than many of his contemporaries, Yo Gotti spits Southern street records from a classic D-Boy stance. At his best, as on “Dope Money,” from his 2007 DJ Drama–hosted Gangsta Grillz mixtape, I Told You So, his words come quick and clipped, littering beats with references to work put in and dished out in and around his North Memphis base. It’s a dark worldview packed in a dark sound that, to date, has kept the rapper born Mario Mims firmly rooted in the Southern underground, respected in the region and largely ignored beyond it. But with a new deal with J Records and the rise of Gucci Mane bringing more attention to some of the South’s darker corners, through Polo Grounds, Gotti, 28, is looking to secure his spot on the larger map.
VIBE: You’re working on your first album on J Records, Live From the Kitchen. Do you have any kind of target date on that?
Yeah, like I’m back here on the tour bus heading to Atlanta to work with some producers now; so right now we ain’t got a street date on it. But we waiting on a lot of anticipation and everybody staying up, so we wanna make sure we set it up right. We just making sure we make a classic album. Right now we halfway into the album, I think, with like four or five singles already, so we just trying to make sure we do it right.
Cool. Are you still doing the Cash Money thing? I know last time we talked, you had the distribution deal with Cash Money for All Star, but I feel like I heard a rumor that that’s a done deal. How’s that going?
Yeah, it’s most definitely Cash Money/Universal. We just released a new single on [All Star] called “Crazy,” featuring myself and Lil Wayne.
How’s your Internet presence right now? How heavy are you out there?
The Internet? Right now we have a team of people we give our own footage for that particular deal. You know, me being a street dude and kinda late to the computer scene, you know what I’m saying, I need the people who can make me be more of a presence on the Internet. We just launching this new, online Web site called Gotti’s World, where we gon’ try to hub everything through. But right now we just trying to get it in everybody’s face.
So you’re still working on getting your whole situation together, then? Get a video channel and all that?
Yeah, we trying to do all of that. We dealing with this new team. The target is to get our own YouTube channel and all that so, you know, [we] get a presence within our own Internet world.
How do you approach your career? Do you like what you do?
I approach this whole shit like a hustle. Like, whether I gain one fan a day or you know, get a record that gets 20, 30 million hits and gain fans everywhere…I take small steps and big steps as a benefit. That’s my independent way of thinking. I just continue to grind. And I focus on markets that I ain’t strong in. Kinda like how it [was] with the Obama campaign. Like, you go campaign in the areas where you the least strong—where you the weakest at, you know what I’m sayin’? And I look at the United States, and I pick a city and I’m like, “Oh, they not up on Gotti?” I’m going there for two months, and when I leave they gon’ be on Gotti. And when I pull into these cities on my own power, you know what I’m saying, in my own hotel, or I’m paying for the buses, or I’m paying for the products I’m giving out and I do it the hard way of doin’ it, [like] before we even had the Internet, you know what I’m saying, ’cause I think the Internet speed that process up, but I’m accustomed to going and giving you my shit hand to hand, ’hood to ’hood, you know what I’m saying? I think these are things that are gonna blow my fan base with this new deal with J Records ’cause this gon’ be the first time in my career that I got a company that’s able to, when they put it out, they can put it out anywhere. I can go ’hood to ’hood, city-for-city, but I can’t be everywhere at once ’cause it’s my homeboys that’s working for me. I ain’t got no street team like everybody else got. So I think the biggest thing gon’ be with J Records is that I’m competitive with the people we in the field with.
You have a line on a mixtape record you did with Gucci Mane, “Come Correct”: “All the streets want to hear is Yo Gotti and Gucci Mane.” Can you talk a bit about what it’s like to be a big street artist in the South without a national presence?
My main comfort is that I ain’t taking penitentiary chances no more, my brother ain’t taking penitentiary chances no more, my mother lives in a $750,000 house, and this is what comes to me off grinding with not being national. So it pays off, you know what I’m saying? Like, you gotta think, when me and Gucci done the mixtape, he a hustler, I’m a hustler. We knew what the mixtape was gon’ do for both of us outside of just being homeboys.
What did that tape do for you?
You had Gucci, he was crazy hot in certain areas. I was crazy hot in certain areas. We knew that working together would help both of us, you know what I’m saying? And it was a unique mixtape. Like we done it in three days, like it was easy. You know how when you work with somebody and it’s kinda awkward to work with him? But me and him, we done it in three days, like we had done something before.… It was just natural.
I know you’ve been in the game for a minute. When do you consider your career really getting its start?
From the beginning, I just done it because I knew how to [rap] and I done it so my neighborhood could represent my ’hood and my city and all that, my school and shit like that. I think when I first started saying I was gon’ get serious was the first time I got a check. On Select-O-Hits, an independent distributing company. The first time I got a check from them, I knew it was real. That’s when I started.
When was that, roughly?
Aww, man, it was off an album called From the Dope Game to the Rap Game. That had to be, what, six, seven years ago?
That was 2002, 2001, ’round in there?
Probably before that. Probably 2000.
Nine years in, what’s driving you to continue making music? What’s the motivation?
The drive to me is freedom. I don’t have too many choices. I do this to make money. When your other choice faces jail time, you got to keep going. When your loved ones are facing that, you got to keep goin’. You know what I’m saying?
If I didn’t know anything about you, which records would you tell me to listen to in order to get to know Yo Gotti?
To get to know me, I would tell you to listen to all my intros. All my intros is gon’ always be a small bio of what I’m doin’, where I come from, and what I’m doing at that actual time of that release. So I think if you just listen to the intro to Cocaine Music and the intro to Back to the Basics, I think them two verses will tell you a lot of what’s going on for me. How I feel about certain people, certain things.
Before the J deal, you were on TVT and then Orchard. But I heard you bought yourself out of that deal. Can you talk about how that went down?
When TVT sold the company, Orchard bought TVT, and I guess they use us as an asset to send to ’em. They kinda put up a number, like half a million, to get me out the deal. At the time we had a bidding war going on, with five or six different major companies who was trying to sign us at the time. And I think a couple of ’em was trying to use the leverage that they knew we needed them to buy us out the contract for half a million in order to get us to do a quick deal. We made sure we was dealing with the right people, and [at the] last minute we decided to buy…. I decided to buy myself out. Like we had a closing date. Like the money had to be in on a Thursday afternoon and the money had to be in to Orchard by 12 o’clock Monday. So we only had, like, four days to send it off, so I sat back and decided to buy myself out the deal so I’d have more time to interview all the companies that was interested in doing the deal with me. ’Cause I didn’t want to be rushed. I wanted to make sure that I was going into the right situation. Even though the deal was big—it was one of the biggest deals—but it wasn’t all about the money. It wasn’t about the checks. You know the checks will come. I had to buy…it was like buying my freedom. I had to buy my own freedom to make sure that I was going into the right situation with J Records. And that same question you asked me earlier about what inspired me to keep going on a level that’s not national is that that same level is what put me in the position to be able to buy myself out that contract.
Press play to listen to "What's Up" from Yo Gotti's Back 2 Da Basics (TVT, 2006)
Press play to watch the video for "Sold Out"
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