Album: Cruel Summer
Mannie Fresh: “I did the drums on it. Honestly, we had much better songs than that, but that’s Kanye’s thing. So many cool things that were scrapped. It was a good idea but it wasn’t executed right because it was like going, 'Hey dude, this is what you’re hiring me for but you won’t let me do it.' I really felt like Kanye would have got it being a producer like, 'Just let this dude do what he do.'
You gotta trust your people. You can’t run a company and you want to do it all. Why are you employing anybody if you don’t trust them?
“It’s a weird thing when you do something and ten more people come behind you. That’s not what it sounded like yesterday and they’re like, 'We let so and so.’ You’re like, 'Why?' Even artists are like, 'It was good how it was. That made no sense at all.' But it was his thing. You gotta trust your people. You can’t run a company and you want to do it all. Why are you employing anybody if you don’t trust them? I feel like he had a good idea but it was way too much going on.
“When the idea first happened, it was so much hype. All you gotta do is live up to what you’re saying, just make good music. At the time, you had Maybach Music and you had Cash Money. So in a sense, the world is ready for something new. I thought G.O.O.D Music was going to be that next big thing, have that seven-year run and things was going to be crazy.
“I thank Kanye for giving me the opportunity and the paycheck. But I thank God that I was a much older artist, more seasoned, because I was like, 'I’m good. I’ll be a freelance producer. I don’t think I’m ready to jump in with nobody right now.' I had been on those situations where I did it how I did it because I really thought G.O.O.D Music could have been something incredibly cool, but it’s got to be like, let these people do what they want to do. You’re that boss dude now, stand back and let them do that.”
