As a part of their 31 Female Rappers Who Changed Hip Hop series Billboard took to the ex Roc affiliate Amil, and reminisced on her Rocafella days. Amil discussed hopping on a track with Hov for the first time on ‘Can I Get A..’, her undying gratitude to Hov and what caused her ultimate downfall from the Roc empire.
“He was looking for a female to say the verse and that’s where I came in at. Jay had already wrote ‘Can I Get A…’ before I got it. I wrote my rhymes around it…Whenever me and Jay recorded it was a natural thing. It was always smooth. The way we sounded together, it was a good chemistry…Jay had respect for my talent – writing and my voice – nothing more. Jay gave me the opportunity of a lifetime, and what I did with it was my own decision. That was my brother. There was never a relationship between me and Jay or anyone over there. He was like a brother. He was very protective over [me]. I’m never going to lose any love for Jay.”
Amil further discussed what caused her distance from the Roc empire, Beyond dealing with being an artist and a mother to her baby boy at the time, Amil stated that much of her distance was due to not being in the business state of mind:
“I didn’t think about the legalities of a lot of things,” she says. “I never cared about the contracts. I could have been signing my life away… I was not a businesswoman at that time. I didn’t have a manager or the things that most artists have. I didn’t put my all into it. I didn’t give 100 percent of myself. I felt like it just wasn’t for me. That’s when I started rebelling. I started rebelling because I wanted out. It was easier for me to slip away. I faded myself. No one faded me. And, that’s when everything seemed to go left. I think they [Roc-A-Fella] knew through my actions that I wasn’t in it. I wasn’t the artist that was doing everything be No. 1. I wasn’t doing anything to make myself bigger than what I was. I wasn’t putting any effort in promotion. I wasn’t looking at it as a career. It’s not that I wasn’t doing it because I was stupid. It was because I didn’t want to be there anymore….There was never a conversation. He [Jay Z] knew that that’s not where I wanted to be. I told him that I couldn’t do it for another year. I think he understood, overall. He thought that as time went on I’d be ready, but later realized I wasn’t. I know he knew, ‘She don’t give a fuck about this shit.’ I was fine being an around-the-way rapper. If I could go back in time and do it all over again, I wouldn’t have allowed myself to jump in the game. If I would have did it again, I would have left it alone. I wasn’t cut out for it. I probably would have stepped in as a writer.”
Checkout the full interview on Billboard.
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