Slim Thug-Boss Of All Bosses Full Album Zip
Mathew Letter
Houston rapper Slim Thug has seen the music business from all angles. He began his career in the late 1990s as an artist on the city's iconic Swishahouse label before going independent, releasing mixtapes and albums that he would drive around the region and sell personally to small mom-and-pop record stores.
After plateauing with that strategy, the next step was to go mainstream. Slim signed to Interscope Records in the mid-2000s, right as the sound of his city was shooting up the charts. While on the label, he worked with Pharrell Williams, Beyonc, Gwen Stefani and other stars. After several years, Slim returned to being independent, which he is to this day. Slim Thug released his latest album, Hogg Life, Vol. 4: American King, earlier this year.
I caught up with Slim via Skype to learn about how he's seen the record business change over the course of his career, and to hear about some of the ups and downs of product placement and endorsement deals. You can hear the full talk here.
Slim Thug: I just took advantage of the promotion they gave me. They promoted me worldwide, and I wanted to take advantage of that and say, let me go back independent with the worldwide promotion that Interscope gave me already and benefit off of that. At the end of the day, the Boss of All Bosses project [the 2009 album Slim released after leaving Interscope] had my biggest records. When I do a show, the records off of Boss of All Bosses are bigger than the records I did on Interscope with Already Platinum. From radio to sales to everything, the independent album did better.
That was all through Daymond John, who's on Shark Tank now. Jared worked for Daymond, and they would have all kinds of products. I would tell him, we got a video shoot, what can we work on? They would cut a check and help with the video expenses, or just cut me a check for representing a brand.
Slim Thug: With our name being Boss Life, bosses smoke cigars. We got approached by a group from San Antonio who wanted to team up and do Boss Life e-cigars. They brought some to one of my shows, I think at South by Southwest. I tested it out, and it was just something cool.