From the bottom to the top, from the gutter to the butter.
Often when a dude comes into his first real piece of change it does more damage than good. How were you at the beginning?
Yeah, I was like that maybe the first year I started makin’ money. I was the same times three, I just wanted to party, get high, act a damn fool, [and] blow money on foolishness. But when I did my taxes that second year and realized how much money I ran through I was like, “A’ight, you gotta put some of this bread up, you don’t know when it’s gon’ stop.” So basically I’ve just been savin’ money and puttin’ up money.
How have you diversified your portfolio?
I’m starting up a publishing company. I’m signing producers, real estate…I’m just jumpin’ into other things.
Are there people in your immediate circle who have had experience with being an entertainer and sharing that insight?
Yeah, Birdman most definitely, I’ve been around Cash Money for 15 years, before Young Money was Young Money. So I was on the road as a kid, I wasn’t rappin’ at the time. I’ve been around since they got their first big deal from Universal. Once I started rappin’, Baby would explain to me, “Youngin’ when you get this money you don’t wanna walk outside and you’re missin’ 2 million and you’re lookin’ around like, ‘Damn, where it went?’ Buy houses, buy cars, buy things that you can walk outside and see. Jewelry ain’t worth it.” If you notice I don’t wear that much jewelry, I got a few things but I don’t wear alot’a jewelry.
Did you have a passion for rapping or was it something that you simply recognized as a way?
Naw man, basically I was in these streets. I had dropped out of school when I was 15. I had my first child around the same time. So I was out here reckless, I wasn’t thinking about rappin’, I was thinkin’ about nothin’ but I was that street cat that had rapper friends which was Wayne and Baby and them. They were my partners at the time but I definitely wasn’t rappin’. When Wayne finally decided what he wanted to start doin’, he basically started a rap label up and started lookin’ for other rappers around New Orleans. He approached me wit’ it, he was like, “Look Gudda…” and this was always my nickname, its not just somethin’ where I jumped up and said, “I’ma rapper and my name’s Gudda,” he was lookin’ at me like, “man you been through a lot out here, you might as well try to rap.” Then he said, “Besides that you look like a rapper, I could sell you and you got a story and people will believe you because I believe you and I know for a fact that people will believe your story because I know the real and I can tell people that ‘that’s the real thing he’s talkin’ right now’.”
What was your next move?
So he told me, “Go write some raps, man [and] bring ‘em back to me. Let me see how they sound and we gon’ work on it from there.” So I ain’t do it the first night I kind’a sat on it for a minute. I was thinking, “I don’t know if I wanna be a rapper, that ain’t really my thing.” But then I was like, “I got a kid and I gotta try to do somethin’ positive out here.” So three days later I wrote about two raps. I didn’t know where to stop ‘cause I didn’t know what a 16 bar verse was, I didn’t know nothin’ about nothin’. I just started writin’; I had three pages filled up with rhymes. I met up wit’ Wayne at his crib like a week later wit’ my rhymes. I start spittin’,[and] I’m readin’ off this paper and as I’m spittin’ I’m lookin’ at the n—- smilin’. I’m like, “What is you laughin’ at, my n—-?” He said, “Man, you workin’ wit’ somethin’. The best thing of all is your voice. You gon’ be able to work on your lyrics but your voice is gon’ get you over.” He said, “I bet you any money that when we get to the studio your voice is gon’ sound better than any n—- in our group.” I said, “Let’s find out.” We started recording the Squad Up mix-tapes and he wasn’t lyin’ ‘cause after two weeks of us puttin’ out those Squad Up mix-tapes I had a buzz.
When can we expect a Gudda Gudda album?
I’m thinking like maybe the top of next year. I’m always working. I’m in the studio at least 5 days out of the week so I’m always puttin’ away joints for the album. But the Guddaville III mix-tape is the next joint I’m droppin’. I’m takin’ it to the next level lyrically and the production is even crazier. I have a lot of crazy producers this go ‘round, like Cashmere Royale, Lex Luger and Keyshown Cassell. He’s signed to my publishing company; he produced “Nightmares at the Bottom” on Tha Carter IV. He premiered it at the MTV Unplugged performance.
Follow at: @ImGuddaGudda
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