— by Alyssa Rashbaum, with reporting by Rashaun Hall
Jae Millz made his name as one of the best underground battle rappers in New York, so much that P. Diddy asked him to appear on "Making the Band." And after years of cutting his teeth on the mixtape circuit, the rapper brings his old-school, grass-roots upbringing to his debut album, Back to Tha Future.
"I'm trying to take the game back to the future," he said, "take you back to when it was all about hip-hop, when it was about lyrics, about the essence, the culture. I'm gonna take you to the future — 'cause that's what I am."
But before he was all that, the MC was an art student.
"I went to high school for [art]," he said. "But as time went on, you get in that lunchroom, they start beating [rhythms] on the tables, and there ain't nothing more to say after that. I just fell into the rap thing, writing rhymes all day."
Millz went up against rappers anywhere, any time he was challenged. Opportunity knocked one day in 1997, while he was battling outside his younger brother's basketball game: Tupac's wife, Keisha Morris, was watching and decided she liked what she heard. She introduced the then 15-year-old rapper to Wanna Blow Entertainment's co-CEOs, Nige and Tone.
"Tone made me battle [for him]," he said. "He asked me what I didn't like doing. I was like, 'I don't really like rhyming over slow beats' — so he comes back with a 90-minute tape of all slow beats, and he made me rhyme to every single one of them. It showed me that you have to learn to adapt and be quick on your feet."
Millz has been with the Wanna Blow crew ever since. He spent a few years dropping exclusive tracks for mixtapes and built a strong buzz on the streets of New York, but as his reputation grew, so did his opportunities for bigger and more public battles — including his appearance on "Making the Band" in 2003.
"I was just in my crib, minding my business," Millz said, "when Nige called me and said, 'Jae, it's going down tonight. Puff wants you to battle someone in the house. I don't know who it is, just get ready."
The MC did well enough in his battle against E. Ness to earn some lavish praise from PD.
"Puff just wanted to see what I could do in front of the cameras, with the pressure on," Millz said. "And after that, he came up to me and was like, 'You made me a believer.' "
Millz scored a record deal with Warner Bros. and released the successful single "Rude Boy Get Up (No, No, No)." He recorded an album for the label, but due to marketing and communication problems, it was never released. So the rapper parted ways with Warner and switched to Universal.
Millz is now preparing for the release of Back to Tha Future, which is slated to come out in May. And although the rapper has done tracks with Cam'ron, T.I., Slim Thug and hitmaker Swizz Beatz, Millz insists that he didn't choose his collaborators for their star power.
"If your beat is hot, I don't care what your name is, I'll make you famous," he said. "I'm not stuck on the names — I'm about making good music."
And for all the high expectations that accompany his debut LP, the man who calls himself "the Statue" — because he feels he represents the spirit of New York hip-hop — sets the bar pretty high for himself.
"I'm just trying to pick up where all the great ones left off," he said, "trying to be the next one to take it there. I'm just trying to stamp my name right now."
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