Outside the Lines With Rap Genius - Mr. Len Excerpt #3 - Rawkus lyrics

SameOldShawn: I was just curious what that time -- the late 90's through 2000, 2001, somewhere around there -- what that looked like from the inside Mr. Len: We definitely all got along. But there was a clear separation. We were the first full-length released on Rawkus. So what happened was, a lot of our money got wrapped up in other peoples' projects. So we -- and this is the only time I feel comfortable speaking for the other two dudes and they're not here -- we couldn't help but feel slighted I remember one time being out on the road and, instead of them sending our promo stuff, they sent "Body Rock" snipes -- those little 12-inch, they look like record covers -- for us to sign. And I signed a bunch of them, "This isn't me." I'm signing over, like, Mos Def and Tash and Q-Tip. What was funny is, I didn't know Tash or Q-Tip at the time. I met Q-Tip when I used to work at Jive, but it wasn't anything like, Tip was walking up to me like, "Hey Len! What's up?" you know? You definitely feel slighted and you're kind of insulted. Sometimes all you can do is laugh at it, but at the same time, you definitely make your feelings known. But it wasn't like I took it out on Mos or anybody else. What was really cool was, there were times that, I remember before they signed Pharoahe, Jarret came to a party I was DJ'ing and was like, "Yo, I'm thinking about signing Pharoahe. What do you think of that?" And I was like, "If you don't, then you're an idiot." So there definitely was a respect for what we do and who we are. But there was times where there was certain things that fell through the cracks or certain things that got done and you're like, are you f**ing serious, dude? I'm in Europe and you send me somebody else's things to sign? I could see if Mos and those guys showed up. But they weren't on flyers, anything. There's no reason for them to send that. So it was just like, "Alright, man. f** you guys. Whatever."