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Wendy Day Talks Possible Collaboration With Slick Rick & Kendrick Lamar

blame it on JES7 November 23, 2014
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You know that old adage “Never judge a book by it’s cover”, right? Well, industry insider and entrepreneur Wendy Day may look like your stereotypical white woman from the suburbs, but best believe she has more clout than many would think.

Wendy Day, who founded the Rap Coalition and penned the book “How To Get A Record Deal” is legendarily known for brokering the record signing deals for No Limit, Cash Money and has also managed the likes of David Banner, Killah Priest, Ras Kass and more.

Recently, NahRight sat down with the iconic woman to talk about her history in a two-part interview series.

Here are some interesting tidbits and highlights from that interview:

On securing a $30 million deal for Cash Money Records:

I didn’t spend very much time with them. They were a little bit hard for me to work with. They were not very forthcoming with information. I never knew whether I had to go to Bryan [Birdman] or Ronald [Slim.] I would talk to one and then I would have to talk to the other. It appeared to me that when I was speaking to them, they were never together. I would always have to make separate phone calls. You know it’s very difficult to have a conversation with somebody where you have to repeat everything twice. It’s a little bit challenging. So I kept a little bit of distance, which in hindsight was great because it enabled me to do what needed to be done without any interference. Without somebody looking over my shoulder and asking me questions along the way, and they trusted me enough to let me say no to a lot of the early deals because they didn’t need money.

Her involvement with 2Pac:

I was his friend more than anything. When he was incarcerated I reached out to him. Actually he reached out to me first, I had helped him when he was in New York. He was about to go to court, he had just been shot and I felt that he was really in a foreign city and he was out here alone. He needed protection because he didn’t know who was trying to kill him. He just knew that he had been shot, he had his suspicions, but nobody knew for sure. I felt like he was out here alone and he shouldn’t be. At the time I had a relationship with the Fruit of Islam, who are the protection side of the Nation of Islam. So I reached out to my friend who is very high up in the Fruit of Islam and I just asked if they could protect him for 24 hours until he went to court because we all knew that he was going to be found guilty. He was too famous and he was really hanging out with the wrong people. It was no surprise, but for 24 hours I just felt like if they could travel with him to court then he would be safe. I did it anonymously. I asked for it as a favour and it didn’t cost me anything other than a phone call.

On her not being paid by Cash Money, and Freddie Foxx intervening with a gun to Birdman’s head:

They just cut off communication. At one point, one of my artist friends bumped into Birdman and put a gun to his head and made him call and apologize to me, which he did. He [Birdman] called me up and said “oh, your friend just pulled me out of Hot 97 and I’m here on the street, on my knees and I want to apologize to you. I really didn’t care about the apology. I wanted to know, why would somebody shit on someone that changed their life for the better? I just couldn’t wrap my head around that and he couldn’t really give me a good answer. Maybe because he was a little scared himself based on the situation. It was actually Freddie Foxx [that put a gun to Birdman’s head] and I think that he has spoken about it so I don’t think it’s incriminating, plus more than seven years have passed.

On co-managing Slick Rick:

I don’t really manage Slick Rick, his wife Mandy manages him. Back in 1998, I started a company called Visionary Management. The goal of Visionary Management was to train managers, who already had artists that were signed to labels. I worked with Black Rob’s manager. I worked with Wu Tang’s manager. I worked with Mandy, Slick Rick’s manager. I built relationships over the years and Mandy still calls me for advice. [Slick] Rick is doing a song with Kendrick Lamar and two days ago she called me and said “hey, this what we’re thinking about charging. This is what we’re thinking about doing, what do you think?” I thought the price was a little bit high and she should come down a little and here I am ten years later still giving advice to somebody was part of my training program. I don’t manage Rick per say, I really just help Mandy her manager.

Read the rest of the interview at eskay’s house and stay tuned for part two!