Jail time may be imminent for Lil Wayne, but it’s business as usual for the rap star’s Young Money record label and crew.
According to the label’s president Mack Maine, all efforts are geared toward releasing new material from Young Money’s stable of artists as well as maintaining its current standing in the eyes of rap fans.
The label is currently enjoying the success and buzz generated by rapper Drake. The Canadian artist is set to release his highly-anticipated album, Thank Me Later, next year.
“My main focus and priority right now [is the] Young Money album December 15,” Mack Maine told AllHipHop.com, while mentioning future releases from Lil Wayne and Cash Money artists such as Baby and Jay Sean. “Rebirth, December 15. Baby album, November. 23. That’s the main s**t. Jay Sean, November 23 too. So that’s what I’m worried about right now.”
The arrival of the Young Money albums comes as Lil Wayne prepares to serve time in prison, after pleading guilty last week to attempted weapons possession. The plea was the result of a 2007 incident when authorities stopped the rapper’s tour bus after a concert in New York.
Lil Wayne faces a year in jail from that case. Despite, the circumstances, Mack Maine mentioned that Lil Wayne is “good.”
“We ain’t even looking at that. We just making sure everything goes straight with these new projects and making sure we eating.’ Keep it moving,” the executive stated. “No matter what, we wake up everyday expecting the unexpected. So nothing come to us as a surprise. You just gotta move through adversity, you know.”
Mack Maine is hopeful things will work out to quicken Lil Wayne’s return after he begins his sentence in February.
“It’s supposed to be eight months, but you know how that go,” the rapper/music executive said. “They can get that cut down. Hopefully he won’t have to do the whole eight.”
Lil Wayne’s attachment to Young Money has provided a bridge towards the label’s alliance with Louisiana-based Cash Money Records, a union Mack Maine sees as beneficial to both parties well as Drake and fellow Young Money artists Nicki Minaj, Gudda Gudda, Jae Millz.
Lil Twist, Lil Chuckee, Shanell, Tyga. Short Dawg and T-Streets.
“You combine Young Money with Cash Money, that’s crazy. They got Jay Sean, Kevin Rudolf, Bow Wow. You got some other artists too that’s about to come out,” Mack Maine told AllHipHop.com. "You got so much diversity in different genres, we just about to take over,” said Mack Maine, who sees infinite possibilities for Young Money in the coming months while predicting the label will go “somewhere it’s never been taken, somewhere we never went.”
“I don’t know where we gonna land. Hopefully, we never land,” he added as he encouraged fans to pick up Gudda Gudda’s upcoming mixtape, Bills, as well as Tyga’s soon to be released effort Black Thoughts.
“Keep going though, no ceilings. That’s the name of the new [Lil Wayne] mixtape that just leaked. So if it’s no ceilings, what’s the top? There is no top.”
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