GlobalGrind caught back up with Akon’s new artist Money Jay.
The “Death Row” rapper stopped by GlobalGrind’s offices to chit-chat about working with Akon, his weed “Irene,” his music and of course, magical strippers.
Check out the exclusive interview below!
GlobalGrind: So you’ve been busy on the road. How does it feel?
Money Jay: It’s a blessing I feel. I’ve been everywhere. Doing a lot of promo shows and I’m getting at fans in every city I go to.
It’s amazing. So tell us what else you’re working on?
Right now, I got a mixtape, it’s dropping next week. It’s called Me, Money, and Irene. The essence behind it is I didn’t do any features on it. Just me, and my name is Money J, and Irene, Irene is the weed I smoke. So really, it’s a nice mixtape. Soon as I’m finished I’ll send it up to you. I’ll have Tresa get that on up to you. But the mixtape crazy! That’s some of the songs he played for you at the listening party.
So Irene, how is she? She treats you well?
Oh yeah, real well. (laughs)
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Is that like a Money Jay special? We’ve never heard of Irene.
You never heard of Irene? It’s a hot commodity around Decatur. It’s gas. We call it gas too. It’s really the strongest weed you can smoke where I’m from. So we call it Irene, we call it gas, you know, OG Kush.
We feel like you must come up with some really great ideas and great musical inspirations smoking “Irene.”
Yeah, but sometimes I won’t come up with nothing when I smoke. I’m just in the studio, I won’t even try.
That’s funny. So if you weren’t smoking Irene what other weed would you smoke?
What weed would I smoke? Bubba Kush or Purp, one of them two.
You ever thought of mixing some weed up and calling it Money Jay?
Oh! I got something in the works. I got some “Death Row” coming.
Now if someone said I got some weed called “Death Row” we’d be scared.
It’ll lay you out. It’s some OG Kush mixed with some Sour Diesel. Yeah it’s growing now.
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You have quite a few tats, what was your very first tattoo?
My first one? My first one was my sister’s name and my mama’s name. These were my first tattoos.
How old were you when got those?
18. I was never enticed to get a tattoo throughout high school. Really I was smart, but I used to get in trouble a lot, so I didn’t want anything to add on. Put it like this, my mama thought I was sweet. She never knew I was bad, so whenever I got in trouble she was the only one on my side. She’d be like, ‘I know you didn’t do that.’ She took up for me, but everybody else knew.
We think everybody thinks their kids are sweet, unless their kids are disrespectful to them. Parents usually say, ‘I had no idea little Tommy is bad, he’s never bad. He never says anything too bad.’
Mhm. See my little brother and all my friends, they mama knew they did shit. Me, they thought I was an angel. I could do anything and get away with it. Until just recently she knew I did shit, but back then, she always took up for me.
So how does she feel about your success and everything? Is she excited for you?
To be real, my mama is my biggest fan. She’ll pull up bumping the music. She lets all her friends at work listen to my music and she’s always on the internet looking at my viral videos. She gets me a lot of fans.
She passes your videos out!?
Mhm. Mhm.
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We talked to you about a lot of crazy stuff last time, like strippers and all kinds of stuff.
Oh yeah, strippers love me. They know my music by heart.
Why do you think that is?
You know them DJs just been pushing the song.
A lot of hot songs come from DJ’s out of the strip club.
Our main goal was to hit the strip clubs first. We went to the strip clubs first, me and Akon broke the song and a lot of strippers got hip to it. Strippers at Stroker’s and Onyx. One stripper told me two days ago she knows my whole song. So the song is killing it in all the strip clubs. You can’t go to one without hearing it.
Next time we go to Atlanta, where should we hit up?
You want to go to Onyx. Onyx is the spot. If you want to go to the hood.
So have you and Akon been in the studio?
Yes, we have three songs together. They’re just not released yet.
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Has he been giving you any advice?
Yeah, he gives me advice all the time. Whenever he calls me, he tells me what I need to do, what’s right and what’s wrong. I just listen because he’s successful and he’s like a role model.
What’s been something that’s stuck with you the most that he’s said?
He always says work hard. So I work hard. He said ‘I barely sleep. I work.’ If you look at Akon he’s working most of the time. He’s always traveling; he’s always doing something, so that’s really what stuck with me the most.
So who are you listening to on the radio right now? Like on your iPod?
I ain’t really had time to listen to nobody and I don’t even have an iPod.
We have to get you one.
I don’t want to get stuck listening to that same song thinking this is a hit. I want to go to the next one and keep going and going and going and going.
So you’ve been doing a lot of shows and performing. Have you had any embarrassing moments on stage yet?
I was performing and my bracelet fell off and I stopped my whole show (laughs). Yeah, that was my only embarrassing moment.
