Mike Jones is speaking out on what he sees as music industry betrayal and naming T-Pain as one of the people who have slighted him.
In a new interview with The Art of Dialogue, the “Back Then” rapper recalled times that his collaborative efforts weren’t reciprocated during the prime of his career.
Among those artists was T-Pain, whom Jones supported at the start of his mainstream career by appearing on the track and music video for his 2005 single, “I'm N Luv (Wit a Stripper)."
But Jones claims that when he sought out T-Pain to be in the music video for his own 2008 song “Cuddy Buddy,” the R&B vocalist distanced himself. T-Pain appears on the album version of the song, while the single features Trey Songz, Lil Wayne, and Twista.
"I did the record. Show love on the record. You saw what the record did—it was a big hit,” Jones said about "I'm N Luv (Wit a Stripper).”
“And in exchange, all I needed was for you to do 'Cuddy Buddy' for me that I also did,” Jones continued. “But it was politics when 'Cuddy Buddy' came around. I'm in the video with a muscle shirt on, and I ain't got none of the features in the video."
Elsewhere, Jones said that he doesn’t have a “personal issue” with T-Pain, a two-time Grammy winner.
"But it just showed me that it wasn't real like I thought it was,” he said. “‘Cause I could have been fake, too. And I could have hid behind a lot of people, too, and been like, I can't even do it.”
The Houston rapper also called himself “the Drake” of 2005 and mentioned D4L’s “Laffy Taffy” as another song that he co-signed, which became a hit, although Jones claims listeners initially “hated it.”
In a previous Art of Dialogue interview, Slim Thug recalled Jones getting cut off by elite members of the music industry as his career stalled.
“Everybody went bad. So, it showed me how fake that world is over there,” Thug said.
