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 Mike Jones has been through some things in his nearly four-year hiatus away from music. Not only has he dropped weight, but he's lost friends and endured the politics of the business.
All of these things, the Houston rapper plans to address of his forthcoming album The Voice, which hits stores April 28. But, while making his rounds, doing press, he's revealing little things about his time away.
In a recent interview with VladTV, Mike revealed a little bit of trouble he had with T-Pain when he dropped his single "Cuddy Buddy" back in 2008.
After leaking it to the streets, the single took off on radio. But, when he reached out to T-Pain to get his hook signed off on, the auto-tune singer was nowhere to be found. It was odd to Mike, because if you remember, he jumped on Pain's debut single "I'm In Luv Wit A Stripper" when the singer was still just a newcomer, and not the superstar he is today.
"When I was super hot -- 2005, 2006 -- T-Pain was new to the game. He recorded ['Cuddy Buddy'] in 2006, but he also had his record he was trying to get off the ground "I'm In Luv Wit A Stripper'," Mike Jones told DJ Vlad. "A lot of people hated 'I'm In Luv Wit A Stripper', to my label heads to a lot of people who begged me not to clear the record. I could of easily hid behind label heads too, like 'Nah I'm trying, but they trippin.' But I put my foot down and said 'We can keep that record and make it be a single' and my label rolled with me at the time. That record took off.
"I wrote around that same era of time, 'Cuddy Buddy.' When we did 'Cuddy Buddy,' it came and took off. We tried to go to T-Pain and get the clearance and it wasn't even a call. It was just like 'Nah, and it happened,' " he continued.
Mike experienced the same problem with Lil Wayne, but he says Weezy gave him the courtesy of a call to let him know his label was blocking it, which he says he understands.
"Wayne showed me a lot of love. Wayne still kept in touch with me. Wayne was letting me know it was politics," explained Mike. "It sometimes go outside of the artist. Sometimes, the artist could really wanna do it, and sometime the label could really just come tripping to where it can't be done. I respect that because a call was at least put out..."
T-Pain, though, Mike doesn't understand.
Without T-Pain and Lil Wayne, "Cuddy Buddy" still reached no. 8 on the Billboard charts, according to Mike. But if he had the support of a video to the original version of the song, he feels it could've went to no. 1.
So instead, Mike went back in the lab, grabbed Trey Songz to fill in for T-Pain, and Twista to fill in for Wayne's verse. But, the original version was still the track everybody wanted, and Mike wasn't able to capitalize.
"I did 'I'm In Luv Wit A Stripper' for you. I didn't put you through all that label B.S. when you was new to the game. Why you throw it on me?" asked Mike. "Especially when I need this record at that time, especially going through all this and all that. Now that this record is hot and going according to plan, now people who used to be down and 100, it's like just dissing me. I'm like 'Damn, it's cool. I ain't trippin.' "
Mike Jones' new album, The Voice, hits stores next week. The current singles are "Next To You" and "Swag Thru The Roof," both of which have been getting radio rotation.
A video for "Swag Thru The Roof" was shot recently, and is expected to be released soon.
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