BIG UP YG!!!DO IT BIG MY BRO.GOD BLESS,
FROM JAPAN
ARISAN(PIMP WALKER/MELODIC TALKER)
aleycat30@live.com
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Mustard reached out as well, and they collaborated for what would be YG's first mixtape, 4 Fingaz, a modest success locally. When YG got out of jail, he performed his first show in Hollywood, playing for a Def Jam executive. A week later, he was in New York meeting with L.A. Reid, then the CEO and chairman of the label.
Though he's been signed to Def Jam for almost three years now, YG still hasn't released a debut album. Even given the dilatory pace of the music industry, that's a bit curious. Regarding the delay, Island Def Jam Music Group's Max Gousse, who signed YG, says, "It was always our strategy to allow YG to develop organically and solidify his base. You really can't put a time line on it. All the Power 106 mixer support and his mixtapes helped him become one of the hottest acts in L.A. The timing is now right."
PHOTO BY W.B. FONTENOT
YG
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YG himself is unperturbed — or, if he is bothered, he doesn't let on. Instead, he prefers to focus on his first headlining tour, now under way, which takes him up and down the West Coast and into Texas.
Back at the studio, he drops ice cubes and pours Champagne into a glass, then asks the engineer to play his latest radio single, "Pop It," which samples rapper Khia's 2002 hit "My Neck, My Back."
It would seem to be a prime example of ratchet, but neither YG nor Mustard terms it that.
"That's what the fans call it," YG says, adding: "I like to have fun, that's what my music be about. Females, money, alcohol, weed, the club, the streets, L.A. lifestyle. Young L.A."
When he puts it like that, it would seem to have much in common with gangsta rap, actually. But there's a difference, he insists: "I didn't have that sad type lifestyle."
Indeed, gangsta rappers long claimed to report on what life in the 'hood was really like. Perhaps the 'hood is a little more lighthearted these days?
"People ask why I rap about [those subjects], but I'm 22 years old," YG continues. "What else am I supposed to rap about?"
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