With his new single “My Last” (featuring Chris Brown) climbing the charts and debuting on iTunes today, Big Sean is gearing up to make a big splash with his debut album, Finally Famous: The Album. Born in California but raised in Detroit, Sean got his first taste of fame when he met Kanye West at a local radio station in 2005. ‘Ye eventually took Sean under his wing and signed him to G.O.O.D. Music in 2007. A year later, Sean signed with Island Def Jam as well. That’s when the real work began. Sean started building his buzz on his own using the Internet and releasing his acclaimed Finally Famous mixtape trilogy. Although he doesn’t have a firm release date for his album just yet, he does have a legitimate single out. We caught up with Sean while he was out in L.A. finishing up his album—which he claims is 85% done—to talk about the making of “My Last,” what his mentor No I.D. has taught him, and how he took his career into his own hands.
As told to Insanul Ahmed (@Incilin)
On his single “My Last” f/ Chris Brown
“It's crazy because that was [one of] the first songs that No I.D. gave me when we started working on the album. He was like, 'Man, do this song.' He gave me the beat and I wasn't feeling it, at all. I was like, ‘Man, I ain't about to do this.’ He was like, 'I swear, if you do this it's gonna be big.' I didn't see his vision at first until I really tried to hear out what he was saying. I told myself I'd do it just to do it. I ended up doing it and it turned out real good. One of the things that taught me was to always see the potential in a song because after I finished the song he made the beat better. He adjusted [the beat] and I loved it. So, that was one of the things I learned working with him and people like Kanye—you gotta see the potential before you're quick to say, ‘No.’
On feeling abandoned and starting his own movement
“There was one point in my career when I felt like I was abandoned by everybody. [That was] just how I felt. This was around 2008. Kanye was busy all the time, but Kanye is an artist himself. It was just a miscommunication between us. I felt like my management wasn't on point at the time. I was just home in Detroit having to work on music myself. I didn't really know how to do that. I was fresh in the game, I had just gotten signed, and I didn't understand what the hold up [was]. Even at Def Jam I was like, 'Man, why isn't my stuff coming out? What's up with this? Why isn't Kanye making me my single?' There were just a whole bunch of things going through my head, but I just had the completely wrong idea. Def Jam wasn't in the wrong, Kanye wasn't in the wrong, G.O.O.D Music wasn't in the wrong. I realized that it's not that I was abandoned, it's just that I needed to still work like I wasn't signed. They were supporting me as much as they could, but they had nothing to work with, honestly. It was like, 'Man, how you gonna want us to put a single out and we're not gonna make anything off of this? This isn't gonna happen because you have no leverage.' I was strictly signed off talent, but I had to gain my own leverage and I didn't understand that at first.
On working with Wiz Khalifa on Cabin Fever
“Me and Wiz are homies, that's one of my best friends in this music game. He's a real G. He let me know the other day that he reached out to me in like '07, back on Myspace. I told him I never saw it, but he said he's been fucking with me since then. I always respected him. Years ago, when he came to Detroit to perform I reached out like, ‘If you need anything let me know.’ So, we just been homies for a long time. And I was just at his crib out in L.A. [recently] and we were just kicking it, chilling out, and he was like, 'Man, let's do some music together.' And that's how that happened. Two days later, he put it out. Me and him got a lot more work coming together too.”
On his relationship with No I.D.
“I met No I.D. through Kanye. Kanye took me under his wing when he was working on Graduation before I signed to him. He just took me under his wing and had me in the studio with him and No I.D. was always there. That's Kanye's mentor and he would help out a lot. Then, for a while, No I.D. was appointed the president of G.O.O.D Music. He's not [the president] anymore but he was for a little while. I was one of the acts that he really wanted to work with first. We just had a great working relationship. He's a real O.G. and I'm a young G, so when you’re both G'd up you just can relate on a personal level. And our work started speaking for itself. We just had a click. And a click between an artist and a producer is sometimes hard to find. He's my favorite person to work with. He's definitely been a mentor for me, along with Kanye. They're both my mentors. [No I.D.] sheds a lot of knowledge and he's an example of how somebody in the game should welcome young people. You know, there are some older people that are trying to solidify their spot and they don't wanna share with younger people because they feel like this and that. But he'll have young producers come in and he'll try to show them what’s up. [He’ll] give them game instead of trying to conceal anything from them.
On his relationship with Mike Posner
