Former Young Money member Chanel West Coast recently sat down Shirley Ju on the “Shirley Temple” podcast and discussed why things didn’t work out with the label after initially planning to sign with Lil Wayne. Chanel was highly touted by Wayne and was managed by Young Money in 2012 before leaving the company after only releasing a mixtape, Now You Know.
“It didn’t work out more because certain people weren’t feeling me being a part of the clique. I’m really grateful that Wayne f—–d with me, gave me a cosign and said, ‘be part of my clique.’ I can’t control what happened, so many different politics that people don’t know behind the scenes. I waited a year and a half for my Young Money deal to get done, that’s how much I wanted the deal. Other people said, ‘you have to try for this label, go another route,’ ” she explained.
Shirley Ju then directly asked Chanel West Coast if she was speaking of Nicki Minaj when she stated that certain people didn’t want her around. “Yeah, yeah, it was that. But I don’t really wanna talk about that because it’s really old,” as it clearly isn’t an issue any more for Chanel.
Chanel West Coast also divulged that Tupac was one of her biggest inspirations and inspired her to be an artist.
“My favorite Tupac song is ‘So Many Tears,’ which is a deeper one. I like those deep Tupac songs. I love ‘How Do You Want It,’ that’s what got me into rapping. Really, Tupac is my main influence. That’s all I listened to in middle school and high school. It was really Tupac. As far as female artists, someone that’s not really a rapper, but Gwen Stefani. Style-wise, I loved everything she did. Her style was so different. As an artist, I wanted to combine the two. That’s my inspo: Tupac and Gwen Stefani,” she further commented.
Check out the interview on the following page as she discusses her relationship with Lil Wayne, her latest album America’s Sweetheart and rocking out with Too $hort and Three 6 Mafia’s DJ Paul.
