All About Laughs
Mystikal is telling all in his first VladTV interview. The New Orleans rap vet details events from his storied career and makes some first time revelations about how he got started.
Mystikal was born Michael Lawrence Tyler on September 22, 1970. He attended Cohen High School before serving a brief stint in the military.
Talking about his experience serving the country, Mystikal details how he wanted to do something meaningful after high school and was just hoping to buy a BMW. Life came at him quick when after 20 years of peace, the US entered the Gulf War. He was part of project Desert Storm and went on several suicide missions, before falling out of love with the military and getting discharged.
He retuned home to work odd jobs and pursue his rap dreams. He told Vlad he was working odd jobs at Woolworth, a restaurant and the Super Dome. On the side he did gigs.
During one show at the Treme Center, he had the honor of opening for rap icons Run-DMC and Doug E. Fresh. It was during this show that he was spotted Leroy “Precise” Edwards of Big Boy Records.
Edwards and his business partners Charles Temple & Rob Shall took an interest in Mystikal and decided to sign him. When he told them he had several jobs and had to return to work the next day, the label awarded him $500 to quit and come work on music. The rest, as Mystikal says, was history.
The revelation came as a shock to those familiar with his success, but he went on to say that that was just some upfront money to get him to commit full time.
Later on in the interview he talks about how his success was stifled due to his label next label Jive Records not having a “true street team”.
“Jive didn’t know how to market me. I was so unique of an artist.” later he said “Shake Ya A**” probably woulda went diamond” he told Vlad. However his label didn’t have the capacity to truly market an urban record and as a result all of his contemporaries at the time out sold him. He specifically mentions Nelly and others who were prominent at the time. Listen to more below.
