After releasing the freestyle “EAT,” Brooklyn rapper Young M.A. checked in with long-time supporter Funkmaster Flex to talk about recent events. At 01:48 Flex asked her about the appearance in November of a Headphanie-branded bottle of whiskey, which was designed and sold by a Florida-based tee-shirt company.
When asked about the bottle, she acknowledged it was clever, but wasn’t sanctioned. Said Young M.A., “That wasn’t by Young M.A. I ain’t gonna lie, salute to the people who did do that. That was very smart. Unfortunately that didn’t last long. You gotta make sure things are right business wise. That was definitely taking a risk with not just me, with Hennessy, that’s the big dogs right there.
“We definitely had to put a stop to it. At first we thought it was fake, we thought it was a Photoshop thing or whatever the case, so we saw people in a video with the actual bottle. We thought, ‘Oh, ‘This is for real. This is really moving.’ Nah, I ain’t gonna front, I thought it was actually bigger than it was. It was actually in one town, it was in Florida.”
On the image that circulated of the three men who were credited with the idea, Young M.A. responded, “I wasn’t too sure if it was them that did it. People were saying it, but you can’t be too sure, that could be people…I don’t know who was behind it. I still don’t know to this day, as long as we had put a stop to it. Whatever the case.”
Flex went on to ask her if they offered her a cut of sales, and she responded, “Nah, nah, Hennessy, that’s a big corporation right there. Point, blank, period. You’ll have bigger problems with them guys then you’ll have with me. Everything is under control,” adding that the name belongs to her, “Headphanie, that’s mine. I own that. I was actually being nice. We found out it was a young kid behind it, that was just basically throwing support.”
They also discussed the emergence of “OOOUUU” as a big hit, and Young M.A. credited Flex for helping to break out the single in New York. Later in the interview, Flex acknowledged he didn’t introduce the single (which has sold 500,000 copies), but first heard it in the Bronx, blasting out of a car, and when he saw “a kid on the curb knew the words” he could see the song would be powerful.
She also addressed (16:40) the concert at which she told a woman to move to the back of the venue because she didn’t have her phone camera out. “We never kicked her out out of the concert. I ain’t gonna lie. I apologized the next day,” said Young M.A.
Speaking on the controversy (21:09) over a recent gig in New Orleans, where she was accused by a local promoter of taking $33,000 without performing, she didn’t provide much of an explanation other than to emphasize she is an artist, and as such is not the person dealing with bookings and other business-related matters.
Image via Flex’s Instagram.
