Canibus has recounted the moment during which he received some Zen-like wisdom from JAY-Z early in his career, sharing that he missed out on a full convo with Hov.
The rapper appeared as a guest on the latest episode of Outside with Gorilla Nems, during which he was asked about his relationship with Wyclef. As Canibus described the amount of access his former mentor gave him to the music industry, he recalled being approached by JAY-Z at the grand opening of Diddy‘s restaurant, Justin’s, in 1997.
“He says, ‘Yo Canibus, man… I like yo shit. You ready for what this game about to do to you?,” real cool,” he told Nems. “And me being young and ignorant, I said, ‘Hell yeah I’m ready!’”
Before the conversation could go any further, Wyclef told Canibus they needed to head to the studio to work on his hit single, “Gone Till November.” In retrospect, the “Second Round K.O.” rapper said he didn’t understand what he was being asked and missed out on the opportunity to make a stronger connection with JAY-Z.
“I’m not realizing that this is a multi-billion dollar enterprise and industry and that there’s a chain of command involved,” he explained. “It’s not just how good you can rap. Them Triple OGs, they knew that I didn’t know what the fuck I was doing. They knew all I could do is just rap.”
He continued: “I didn’t know to say, “Nah man, I wanna be a mogul. I wanna come out with my own communications company, I wanna do the internet. I didn’t do that. We exchanged numbers, management and all that and I went to the studio and did ‘Gone Till November.’”
Returning to his original point about the ways in which Wyclef impacted his life and career, Canibus went on to tell Nems and his co-hosts about the many new experiences that came from the song’s success, reiterating that he simply was too young to make the most of the exposure at the time.
“If I could do it all over, because I know I have the ability to do so much with written poetry and the rhythm,” he said. “I woulda just did some Drake shit, some Kendrick Lamar and made all the fuckin’ bread. And then I woulda came back and helped the culture.”
In recent years, Canibus has once again become active on the music scene, releasing a bevy of mixtapes and EPs between 2018 and 2021 before the arrival of Kaiju, his first full-length in six years. A year later, he delivered One Step Closer To Infinity.
However, just as with the earlier part of his career, Canibus’ comeback has also involved some controversy.
In March 2022, the rapper released a mixtape titled C, which proclaimed on the cover art that it had been produced entirely by Pete Rock. Two months later, however, Rock denied producing the two beats featured on the EP.
The legendary producer shared a photo of the album’s cover art to his Twitter page and wrote in primarily all caps, “I WOULD NEVER EVER EVER NEVER EVER PRODUCE SOMETHING THAT SOUNDS THIS BAD OMG.
“THIS IS A THIRSTY MOVE BY CANIBUS PEOPLE BUT HE DONT SOUND GOOD ON IT WTF OMG yall gotta stop being so thirsty & disrespectful man. Thats how you keep running in the mud. this is super trash lol.”
When someone asked Pete Rock to clarify if it was him on the project, he replied, “HELL NO man sheeeeeeeeit im not gonna ever misrepresent myself in this game ever. They will do it before me.”
He later went on to claim that his vocal contribution to the project was a deep fake.
The posts drew the attention of Canibus’ manager, Matthew “M-80” Markoff, who was quick to provide proof of Pete Rock’s involvement. Markoff was adamant Rock was paid handsomely for his contributions and even demanded more money once the project was underway.
In a series of tweets, he posted documentation of email exchanges between himself, Pete Rock and his team; as well as proof of the financial transactions made to compensate the producer for his work on C.
“The “C” EP dropped 2 months ago and you can see Pete retweeting the three single drops, interviews and online stories about the project but all of the sudden Pete’s telling the world it’s not his work?,” Markoff tweeted. It’s funny and it’s sad to me because this isn’t normal behavior by any stretch of the imagination. Pete may need real mental help if he truly believes the lies he’s telling the world.”
According to AllHipHop, Canibus later denied that there were any issues between him and Pete Rock.
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