photo credit: 935 KDAY
Hailing from the infamous Brooklyn, New York, rapper Maino came through the 93.5 KDAY studios to chop it up with Noah Ayala about the song that made his career pop, how the west supported his career more than the east coast at times, and why he was slapping everybody back in the day.
Maino currently has a forthcoming project that is expected ti drop before summer’s end, but reflecting on how the NY-bred emcee says that his first break in the industry came when he released the 2008 track “Rumors”.
“Rumors” is really the record that changed my life. That was the song that I made that had not only radio stations playing it, but it had record companies calling me directly. I got my first major recording deal off of “Rumors”. I had labels, A&R’s calling me like, ‘Yo we’re trying to do a deal.’ But, I’m like, what? Hanging up on certain people because I ain’t even think it was true. You know, so, that was the record. That was the pivotal moment for me, right there.
While “Rumors” dropped more than 10 year ago, Maino is back with a new project on the way and is currently pushing his Macy Gray-featured single “All Again”. Maino tells Noah what to expect with the new releases saying, “We just gonna continue to push up. Continue to increase the value. We got a new song out right now, “All Again” with Macy Gray, the video is out right now. We got a brand new project coming. It’s called On Everything I Love, and we just gon’ continue to grind.”
Maino addresses the misstep that his business relationship took while working with the Young Money honcho Birdman.
The business wasn’t there. You know, if we gonna do business, let’s do real business, so that we could benefit off that. Like, I don’t want to be in a situation that I’m going to be looking at you crazy later on and we gotta have a issue and stuff like that. Like, that’s not what I’m about. I don’t think at that point we were able to get the business down to a place that it would have been good business.
Maino goes on to discuss the current state of hip-hop and how there is a lane for everyone, explains why he never watched himself during his time on Love And Hip Hop, and the rapper details how the west coast supported his career more than the east coast during certain moments of his success.
Watch the full Maino x Noah Ayala interview below!