Jae Millz Reveals the Reason Lil Wayne Once Kicked Drake Out of Young Money — ‘He’s Doing S*** That’s Outside of the Box’
Drake has been a huge artist for some time now and is arguably the biggest artist in the world today. He became a superstar as a member of Lil Wayne’s Young Money roster in the 2010s, then branched out on his own.
With an artist as talented as Drake, it’s hard to imagine anyone ever wanting to cut ties with him professionally. But that nearly happened when Lil Wayne kicked Drake out of Young Money, many years ago.
Lil Wayne and Cortez Bryant had problems over Drake’s contract
No matter how strong a relationship between two people may be, disagreements over money can often cause it to be strained. The same happened with Lil Wayne and his longtime manager, Cortez Bryant, when the two brought Drake on to Young Money.
Both Lil Wayne and Bryant legally owned the rights to Drake, but things got hazy at times. At a certain point, the gray area in their agreement caused a rift between Drake and Lil Wayne, Young Money labelmate Jae Millz told Bootleg Kev.
“I think Wayne and Drake thing at that time was more so Wayne and Tez,” Millz said. “Wayne trusting Tez with s—, and then finding out some s— might not be what it is … but now Drake is in the middle of it, because it’s like, that business, that paperwork s–t, and all of that type of s–t. I think that was the issue.”
Lil Wayne kicked Drake out of Young Money
It’s hard to believe that an artist as big as Drake would ever be kicked out of a group, but it did, in fact, happen.
Millz recalled being in the studio at the exact moment Drake got kicked out of Young Money.
“I was in the studio with Drake in New York,” Millz said. “Cool, chilling, everything cool, smoking. He’s recording and he went in the hallway, came back, and I was like, ‘You good?’ He’s like, ‘Yeah, man.’ He’s like, [Lil Wayne] just told me I’m not Young Money no more.”
Lil Wayne didn’t like not knowing what his artists were doing
As was stated earlier in the same interview, Lil Wayne doesn’t like feeling like he’s not on the same page as his artists. This led to him temporarily kicking Nicki Minaj out of Young Money as well, although the two were able to reconcile.
However, when Lil Wayne kicked Drake out of the group, everyone’s careers were much further along. Drake had several records that were performing well and was knocking out features with high profile artists, which made the situation confusing for everyone.
It appeared that once again, the problem revolved around Lil Wayne feeling like his artist was wandering too far away from the group.
“This is at a time where, like, “Every Girl” is out, you know, we charting [records], Drake’s doing like, “Say Something,” and “Digital Girl,” he’s doing features now for Mary J … Jamie Foxx,” Millz said. “He’s doing s— that’s outside of the box. And I think it was that same thing again … There’s so much s— going on, but Wayne don’t know. He don’t know what the f— is going on with his artists.”
Lil Wayne was upset with Cortez Bryant, not Drake
At the end of the day, everyone understood that the problem wasn’t about Drake and Lil Wayne, but instead concerned Lil Wayne and Cortez Bryant.
“I think that was the thing with Drake,” Millz said. “It wasn’t really nothing with Drake, because even Drake told me, ‘He said it doesn’t really have nothing to do with you.’ And me just knowing Wayne, I know he was having one of them days where it’s like, ‘F— is everybody keeping me in the dark with s— if this is my s—?’ … Just once again, miscommunication.”
