Hit-Boy Reveals He Went Broke After Winning Grammy For “Ni**as In Paris”
Hit-Boy has revealed that even the success of his production work on Jay-Z and Kanye West’s 2011 hit single “Ni**as in Paris” couldn’t keep him from going broke just years after the song won a Grammy. During an appearance on DJ Akademiks’ Off the Record podcast, the Cali native broke down how the spoils of success led to him squandering his earnings in such a quick fashion.
“At 24, I had a big-a** label and artist deal with Jimmy Iovine — this is coming off ‘Ni**as In Paris,’ like the height, height, height of being a poppin’ producer,” the 35-year-old explained. “I get a deal, I get M’s, I go get a crib in Tarzana in the Valley. I move all the homies in, the homies start moving their homies in, their homies start moving their homies in, and it just got incredibly fu**ed up.”
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He continued to describe the atmosphere and added, “I got a big-a** mansion with five studios in it, all my artists living with me. It was just a recipe for disaster. But that’s what ni**as comes from. Ni**as come from having nothing so when you come up, you wanna put your homies on, you wanna have them opportunities to provide. But that sh*t don’t always work out how you think it’s gonna work out.”
The 35 year old boardsman then revealed that he was in a financial rut within five years of being a multi-millionaire, an experience that humbled him.
“I turned up 2012, got dumb bread; by 2017, I was laying on my ground with zero dollars in my account after having millions, balled up in [the fetal position], crying,” he said. “Nobody around me, by myself, and I was living in a mansion in Beverly Hills. I blew it. I was investing in the homies, I was putting up money for everybody around me.”
According to Hit-Boy, it wasn’t until landing the placement of Travis Scott and Drake’s collaborative hit “Sicko Mode” that he began to get back on his feet.
“And mind you, ‘Sicko Mode’ had been recorded, at least Drake’s first part to my part of the beat that I gave Travis,” he said. “All type of sh*t was going on, but I still was like, ‘Yo, I got no money in my account.’ I can’t reach the ni**as that manage me — at the time it was Roc Nation. I’m just completely on my own. I had no money in my account, bro.”
The hitmaker’s latest remarks come a few years after he first alluded to the monetary strains he faced throughout his career, which he attributes in part to bad contractual agreement. In 2020, the producer spoke with GQ about feeling trapped in the deal and being uninformed about the business of the industry at the time.
“I was literally one year out of high school, no education about this sh*t,” Hit-Boy admitted. “There’s not much that you can learn, there’s not a lot out there to tell you how real it is, like how fucked up it can be and how much you need to protect yourself early to then be straight later on in life. For me, I was just bumping my head until I got to this point where my back was against the wall and I knew I had to just say something.”
He then compared his gripes with his publishing deal to that of former NBA star Scottie Pippen’s contractual situation with the Chicago Bulls in the acclaimed docuseries The Last Dance.
“It killed me, dog. I’m watching sh*t, like The Last Dance, I’m looking at [Scottie] Pippen like, ‘Ni**a my contract worse than Pippen.’ Sh*t, like I’m 14 years in and they ain’t had to really invest no real money into me. It’s just messed up. We’ve got to find some type of way to really educate the next generation man, because there’s not a lot out there. If you look online, there’s no real information on how to get out of a publishing deal. How to really avoid a terrible publishing deal. And it’s not like I’m on a decline. I literally am on the number one album [in the country] right now.”
Hit-Boy has since landed back on his feet and won a Grammy Award for Best Rap Album for his work on Nas’ King’s Disease album in 2020. He has also racked up production credits on albums by Beyonce, Big Sean, and Benny The Butcher. His most recent project is Nas’ King’s Disease III album, which debuted at No. 10 on the Billboard 200, the rapper’s 16th album to hit the Top 10 on the chart.
Listen to Nas’ King’s Disease III album below.
