Birdman dropped all kinds of gems during his recent appearance on the Big Facts Podcast. The rap icon spoke with the hosts of the show about how he gave nearly $1.5 billion to Lil Wayne, Drake, and Nicki Minaj after striking a deal with Universal, how he believes he’s accomplished more in the music business than JAY-Z and Diddy, YoungBoy Never Broke Again becoming the biggest rapper in the world, and much more. He also spoke about his relationship with Kanye West, revealing that he had a chance to sign the Chicago-born musical genius to a producer deal, but he chose not to because of Mannie Fresh.
As you surely already know, Mannie Fresh crafted some of the best beats at the time for Lil Wayne and everybody on Cash Money. Birdman believed that there was only room for one producer on the roster, so he sent Kanye to Roc-A-Fella and kept Mannie on his team.
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Answering whether he regrets not signing any particular artists, Birdman named Kanye, explaining, “Kanye West was with me before he was Kanye West. I knew he was special, I let him go because I had Mannie Fresh. Kanye came to me as a producer, and I wasn’t ever going to disrespect Mannie Fresh because I started with Fresh. It was either gonna be Fresh or Ye, so I had to let Ye go. He went to Roc-A-Fella, I flew him to Roc-A-Fella. We always kept a bond, but he was living with me at my house.”
It’s interesting to think how this could have changed the course of Kanye’s career, especially knowing now that he’s gone on to become one of the greatest artists of all time and a multi-billionaire businessman. Do you think Birdman should have signed Kanye West? Peep his comments below at the 45:00 mark.