After creating my blog Calling the Bluff in 2012, the first artist I interviewed was rapper/producer Lil Lody.

In September of that year, the North Memphis-bred talent came to the Flyer‘s headquarters and chopped it up with me. During the interview, Lody talked about everything from his introduction to music to dream collaborations.

But something that really stood out was when he opened up about losing his sister in a fatal car crash, and also being sued by Project Pat and Juicy J. 

Check out the excerpt from the interview where he touches on both topics below. 

On your latest mixtape, Foolish, you touch on some personal topics, primarily in the song “Foolish.” One of them is losing your 10-year-old sister a few years ago. Can you elaborate on this?

It happened on December 28th, three days after Christmas. She was in a car wreck. She was on her way home from the skating rink in the car with some more people. As they were getting ready to turn, a police officer was coming fast down Jackson. He tried to hurry up and turn the lights on, but it was too late. They were in the turning lane. They had their turning signal on, and the police car just hit them. Boom! The car flipped multiple times. She flew out of the car. We couldn’t even find her.

By the time we did find her, she was still alive, but they said her brain was dead. She was pretty much gone when we got there. They tried to put her on machines and stuff, but she wasn’t responsive. It fucked me up mentally and physically. I’m past all of that. I feel like death is something that’s going to come. Nobody can run from it, and you can’t change it when a person dies.

In “Foolish,” you also mention being signed to D. Brady Entertainment, a record label founded by Project Pat and Juicy J, and subsequently being sued by them. How did that happen?

When I deal with people, I don’t deal with people on a business level. I deal with people on a more personal level first, then we can get into business. When I did the agreement with them [signing to D. Brady Entertainment], they promised me a lot of stuff. They told me, ‘You should sign with us. We’re going to do this for you. We’re going to get that.’ But when they brought me into the picture, it basically wasn’t that. They were just trying to use me to get beats. I kept telling them, ‘I’m a rapper. I was a rapper first.’ They were hearing me, but they weren’t hearing me. They signed me as an artist. That’s what the contractual agreement was about. The beats didn’t have anything to do with it. They wanted me to be a rapper, come out with an album and all that. If you look in one of the albums’ artwork they put out during that time, you’ll see my name, ‘Coming soon, Lil Lody.’

I was seeing that they weren’t fucking with me, but I was still making moves. One day, I just called them and told them I wanted to get out of the contract. I told them, ‘I don’t feel like anything moved for me. Y’all are not keeping your promises. Y’all have breached the contract because y’all haven’t done anything that y’all said y’all were going to do. Y’all haven’t given me an advance. Y’all haven’t given me any money. Y’all haven’t done anything but bought a few beats from me.’ I was giving them, like, 10 to 15 beats for $1,500 to $2,000. I know that they’ll never tell you anything like that, but I will. I can’t sugarcoat anything. 

I ended up meeting [Young] Jeezy. We vibed off the rip. As soon as the “Ballin” song dropped, Def Jam gets a letter from D. Brady. I asked them why they’re suing me, and they said basically because I was signed to them as an artist, and they feel like they helped me blow up. I was only messing with Jeezy on a producer level. They had me signed as an artist. I was trying to understand how they could do that. But really they had me locked all the way around where I couldn’t do anything like that without their permission. I fought the case. They were asking for $250,000 at first. My lawyers broke them down, and they couldn’t show any proof of where they gave me $250,000. They couldn’t show any proof that they gave me any advance or anything, so they had to end up settling for $50,000. I gave it to them to keep it moving with my career.

Read the full interview here. 

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