Gillie Da Kid – The Best Of The GDK Mixtapes

GILLIE DA KID’S THE BEST OF THE GDK MIXTAPES, TO BE RELEASED MARCH 13th ON BABYGRANDE RECORDS

On the heels of highly publicized legal troubles, Gillie defiantly presses forward with the release of his first solo LP featuring Philly’s renowned Major Figgas crew

Over the years, Gillie Da Kid of the Major Figgas crew has electrified the streets of Philly with his mixtape releases, substantiating his self-proclaimed appointment as the “King of Philly.” The broader hip-hop community, however, probably knows him best for the highly publicized beef with Cash Money (and more specifically, Lil’ Wayne), surrounding his ghostwriting efforts for the renowned New Orleans clique.

Now, with the March 13th debut solo release, The Best of the GDK Mixtapes, Gillie showcases the highlights of the renowned mixtape releases that made him a “hoodhold” name in the streets of Philly. Featuring the entire Major Figgas crew, any doubts as to Gillie’s ghostwriting claims will be laid to rest. As is often remarked in the industry, beef is beef and talk is just talk. In the case of Gillie Da Kid, however, “the facts are truly in the wax.”

Gillie Da Kid first garnered national attention as one seventh of the Philly-based group Major Figgas with the release of their album Figgas 4 Life in the late ‘90s. In 2000, the group’s single, “Yeah, That’s Us,” became the #2 rap single in the country and Gillie and the other six Figgas (Spade, Dutch, Bianca-The First Lady, Bumpie J, Ab Live and Rolx) received an ASCAP Songwriter award. However, the critical acclaim and underground appreciation for the group was never matched by the record’s sales, so the Figgas chose to focus on their solo careers.

After a chance meeting with Baby from Cash Money Records backstage at Philadelphia’s First Union Center, Gillie was offered a spot on the label. The deal was completed in a week, but disputes over publishing rights placed the artist and label in an antagonistic relationship. “I didn’t want to sell any of my publishing,” Gillie said in an interview, “but they just assumed that after we got the label deal done they could just make me blink into selling them some publishing, but I wouldn’t do it. So that’s why they basically had me playing the background.”

Playing the background was all Gillie needed to shake things up at the label. “When I got around there, I changed the whole direction of Cash Money. Not just the ghostwriting part, I’m talking about everything,” he says. In addition to his claims of ghostwriting for Cash Money artists, most notably his assertion that he penned nearly all of Lil’ Wayne’s The Carter I, Gillie says he is single-handedly responsible for the rapper’s dramatic change in rap style. Gillie left Cash Money to pursue a solo career- and kept quiet about what he did for the label until Lil’ Wayne released a diss track directed at him.

The question of his influence on Wayne and Cash Money is a controversial one in the hip-hop community and is responsible for Gillie’s somewhat infamous reputation, but he handles it with the bravado of an artist confident in his abilities: “[Lil’ Wayne] feel like he got something to prove, but you don’t got nothing to prove to nobody, shorty. Just keep doing you ’cause this could be your downfall…you don’t even have enough charisma. You a clone.”

Gillie made headlines in June of 2006 by getting shot three times in what the police called an attempted murder. There were no suspects and the perpetrator’s motives remain unknown, reportedly due to his lack of cooperation with the authorities. However, Gillie hardly seemed phased by the shooting, coolly explaining in an interview that “[he] got shot a few times, you know…but it was about nothing, [he’s] still here breathing.”

The shooting and Gillie’s beef with Lil’ Wayne, Baby, and Cash Money Records aside, Gillie is focused on the March 13th release of his first solo LP, The Best of the GDK Mixtapes and bringing more prominence to his native city and fellow rappers from Philadelphia, a town known more for exporting talent than keeping it. “Everybody from Philly that came out didn’t give back,” he says. Gillie hopes to change all that with his explosive buzz. “[I'm] going around displaying talent, giving them a shot, letting them be seen and heard,” he says, “I’m working on me and my crew.”

Buy: The Best of the GDK Mixtapes

Source: Hip Hop Crack

www.GillieDaKid.net

www.CrackSpace.com/gilliedakid

www.babygrande.com

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