Mr. Len: My take on the Rawkus thing was totally different

SameOldShawn: But there was almost no room for that because El's response was so big

ML: But it was also really fucking cool. It sounded dope, you know? But my approach to it was, when someone owes you money -- and to me, the evidence was Little Johnny -- you owe me money, but you know that you messed around with my money. So now you're in my pocket. So I get to come up with this idea of, I'm gonna make a record of nothing but beats, and you're gonna put it out. And on top of it, now, when it sells, you're gonna have to pay me even more money. As a producer, at that time at least, there wasn't many vehicles for you to express and for you to get something released

We all did things ourselves but there's that basic rule in business of "Don't spend your own money." So you know what, technically, I'm still spending my money, but I'm really spending yours. Not to say that it would have went down like that, but there's more of a chance of me saying, alright, if we never would have split with Rawkus, "Hey, I'm gonna do a MeLa Machinko record. What are you gonna say, no? Okay, well then, give me all my money now and I'm leaving." "Okay, well, wait a minute, Len, because we got your money wrapped up in some other stuff so, okay, we'll put it in the [album]."

But the thing is, now, I can work as a collection agency, and we can make a deal where, you gotta pay me in increments. And all of this adds up. But like I said, there's no way to look back on it now and say, that's what it would have been or whatever. But it wasn't that extreme of being mouth-fucked by a Nazi