Mannie Fresh was chilling comfortably at home in New Orleans when he hopped on the line with the Breakfast Club this morning. The legendary producer has been staying Rona-free and very busy.
Lucky for us, we were able to cash in on his free time thanks to his beat battle with Scott Storch. Even though Fresh was asked last minute, his natural love of a challenge made for an exciting headline for IG Live viewers everywhere. In fact, Mannie was well ready for the showdown since going beat-for-beat was a thing he's been doing for a while before it got popular on social media.
"It was something I was doing way before them. If you do the history of it, I was doing Beat Summit. Beat Summit was maybe four or five years prior to this even happening. But it was producers versus producers with catalogue. So nobody told me the rules changed or nothing like that...I just went about it the same way I was doing it before."
Though he feels he ultimately won the war, there was definitely question of whether Scott played fair since he included songs that were outside the assigned genre and some that he didn't work primarily on. Expecting it to be a hip-hop battle and not an R&B beat battle, Fresh admitted to feeling like he "got jumped" when he was ganged up on by songs featuring Dr. Dre, Timbaland and other hitmakers.
"I didn't know I was going up against all them people. I thought it was my catalogue versus this catalogue."
As we all know, Mannie Fresh's presence at Cash Money is what built the label to be what it is now. Leaving the company created a lane for him to branch out and work on different projects. However, his notoriety with the company made it intimidating for outsiders to reach out.
"I guess by the time I left Cash Money, I did Jeezy. I did T.I. It was already, I guess, known to a lot of people, nothing really left out of Cash Money so a lot people didn't think they could reach out to me. All of people thought it was off limits and were like, 'Mannie just do Cash Money. He don't do nothing outside of Cash Money.' So a lot people assumed I wouldn't even do those songs. But I was down to whoever want it."
When it came on to life at the label, the man clearing $50,000 plus on beats wasn't getting a fair trade in his contract. His reasoning revealed because CM was created "on the streets," the "street mentality" was brought into the business arena. Meaning he saw the lavish lifestyle his partners were living that he wasn't and realized the numbers just weren't adding up.
Of course we hear stories about Birdman doing his artists dirty with unfair contract deals and it seems Mannie was no different. But when it was time to part was Fresh was able to get some of his masters with "no problem." To this day, he explained his relationship with the alleged shady music business mogul is "a whole lot better."
"We get along. And I felt like it was time anyway because my kids know his kids. I'm not a bitter person and on top of like, when you gripe and you fight somebody you give them the energy. I'm not somebody who will give somebody some energy. I don't think I would've succeeded if I was mad at Baby. I don't think I would be sitting here right now doing this interview if I was mad at Baby for something or whatever. I just feel like you know what it is. You live, you forgive and you keep it moving."
Check out how the new wave of producers effected his work after leaving CM, who he thinks would be a viable opponent against Lil Wayne in a hits battle and how he balanced business within his personal relationships.