JT Money is a long-standing veteran in hip-hop culture with a résumé spanning almost four decades as he began his run in the late ’80s and early ’90s. His first major breakthrough was when his group Poison Clan was signed to Luke Records. JT Money had numerous hits on the Billboard Top 100 charts with the clan before releasing his solo debut album in 1999, Pimpin’ On Wax, which featured the song “Who Dat?” which debuted at No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot Rap Tracks and was certified gold by the RIAA.
JT Money is now releasing his seventh studio album titled Immortal, which has features from Rick Ross, Trick Daddy, CeeLo Green, 8Ball & MJG, Pleasure P of Pretty Ricky, Trap Beckham, and a reunion with his group, Poison Clan.
Tell us about your upcoming project.
I’m mixing the old-school game with the new-school game, and I’m going to stop the bickering between the two. I got some young fire producers and co-writers, including myself, and we’re just having a meeting of the minds. It’s about having mutual respect. You got the old cats that think they know everything because they’ve been there instead of listening to the young cats who can see today. It’s about humbling yourself and still standing on what you stand on, but showing respect. The work we came up with, I’m proud of it.
What do you think makes this album stand out?
I got some major player features besides the young cats with that new fire sound. I’ve got Trick Daddy and Rick Ross on one song with Uncle Luke. I got 8Ball & MJG, CeeLo Green, and Pleasure P all on the album. I’m going to get them because I used to try and do all the albums by myself. It used to be 14 songs of me. But that’s what we do in this game, we collaborate. In our era, we wouldn’t do a lot of features outside of who was on the label. The house was divided, but it’s coming together. This is all hip-hop and rap culture.
What does hip-hop’s 50th anniversary mean to you?
The game is still young. I’ve been in the game for 33 years and my first album came out in 1990. But 50 years and to see the evolution, I’m not mad, we just got to get it together. I like all the talk of controlling and ownership, but I think it’s going to be more of the knowledge and predicting, for example, technology. They’re going to beat us in the tech world in some kind of way, so we’ve got to get ahead of it. I’m proud of hip-hop and that it’s still going on because when we were coming up just before I got in, they were saying that rap wasn’t going to last and that it was just a phase. Now, the whole culture is hip-hop.
