his record was done before 4:44. But do you hear Hov talk about wanting to be with Beyonce. And people are just focused that it’s Beyonce. That man is in love. Let’s take the fact that’s not Jay. Let’s take the fact that it’s not Beyonce. The way he says shit. “When you come back to home, pick up the phone.” That’s un-hip-hop. I made this record before 4:44 for sure. We got the records in the studio, but that’s how I felt. Because my lady or my wife is not on television like a Kardashian, don’t think I look at her or love her like a Kardashian. Or look at her or love her like a Beyonce.

Hov, that man was speaking that shit. He like, “Nigga! I ain’t gonna lose my life for one night.” This is real shit. I sent Hov a stripper one time. He said, “Wrong number.” Because we did Drink Champs in the strip club, and I just sent him a picture. And he’s like, “Wrong number NORE.” I was like, “Oh shit!” I wised up. My wife was right there while we’re filming, but this is real shit. The older you get, you’re like, I don’t want another girl. I don’t want to be on the road smashing and moving on. You notice that lonely guy when you’re on the road. There’s that one lonely dude, he’s always in the lobby. Every night, he always at the lobby and the whole night, he was dissing the big girl. He’s like, “Nah I ain’t touching the big girls.” And that lonely night come and that big girl run through and you know what the big girl do? They always come home to big mama. That’s just his whole life. Because you want to be on the road and there’s nobody to trust.

Love is a beautiful thing, man. Try that shit. If it don’t work? Try it again. That’s what I’m here to preach, and that’s why the name of the record is called “Uno Mas.” Try love again. Try to make a hit again. Try to live your life again. Try to recreate your career again. Try to do something. Do it one more time, even if you fell on your face. Even if you fell on your face and shit fell on your face. Even if you fell down the steps and broke your shit, you know what? Get the fuck back up and do it again. I’m a prime example. Everybody counted me out. Not once, not twice, but maybe seven times. Counted me out as 20 years. Maybe even more than seven. People just said it’s over and I just did what I had to do.

I never complained when I was down, and I ain’t brag when I was up. I just kept it real and I shut the fuck up. My complaints are kept to myself. And that’s just what it is. Just do it one more time. If you’re a person out there and you’re dealing with something and you’re like, “This is it for me. I ain’t into it no more.” Take a break and relax. But remember, do it once more. Uno mas. Try that shit one more time because this might be the time.

If you only know hoes, then you’re living a bad life. Like, if you seriously woke up and said, “All I know is hoes.” You don’t know the good woman that works subways? That puts mayonnaise on fat people’s sandwiches and comes home and feeds her kid? She is a queen. She is holding down a whole household. Captain Save A Hoe is very un-hip-hop. It’s only young people think like that. The more you enjoy life and the more you look at your mother and how she held down the household and your oldest sister or your aunt. And see how these women struggled and these women didn’t get these props. Nah man, I want to save her life. I know she felt that. There’s great women out here with no opportunity and they don’t have the chances. And you know what it is? There’s a man saying, because they couldn’t bag her, “That hoe bitch.” Nah, let’s stop that man. Let’s stop that in our communities. I know some good women from Lefrak City who stand by their man all day. I know some good women from Queensbridge. I know some good women from Elizabeth, New Jersey. I know good women from Harlem, New York. I know good women from the Bronx. I know good women from East New York, Brooklyn. Fantastic women. And the word hoe does not describe them at all, they’re woman. I had to big that up.

I used to celebrate with four wings and fried rice. Now, we used to celebrate. I had an aunt who used to celebrate her cat’s birthday. She would get us all drunk. We’d be fucked up. And she’d be like, “Happy birthday Felix! You’re alright.” And we’d be like, “Who’s Felix?” It’s the cat! “What the fuck? I don’t even like cats! I think I’m allergic. When I come home, I think I have to put the cat outside.” And I took that and she was poor. She wasn’t rich. She didn’t have Rick Ross and JAY Z money. She was poor, but she celebrated life. She was from the bottom and she was like, fuck it. I’m here, I’m alive and she celebrated and I always remembered that.

So, when I come and I got Ching Bing, who’s from The Bronx. And I got Sunny D, who’s from Flatbush. And I got Young Relly and EFN, it’s like, we’re here. We’re alive. Why not just celebrate it when we can? Because so many people forget that. And I also can’t ever ever ever—when it comes to celebration— not salute the original Roc-A-Fella. The original Roc-A-Fella made you want to celebrate. You seen Dame like this, doing some weird dances, having his shirt off in the club for no reason. He’s the only guy. You seeing Jay over there being as smooth as he can. You see Biggs smoking weed and they’re just having a good time.

I think that was the first official hip-hop celebration where everybody was like, “Damn. That looks good.” Even though you ain’t have their money and you might have been mad. Or you might have been hating. Or you might have been congratulating. But you was like, “Damn. That was the first official celebration,” because they did it repeatedly. I gotta big them up. It wasn’t like, they did The Tunnel once one night. And they did a club one night. No, they were on tour in New York. I always took that and I said, “If I ever get up with my own team. If I ever get a chance to give these guys jobs and give them opportunities, we’re going to celebrate that moment every fucking time.”

See, when people get snaked, they’re surprised. “Oh my God, he did that! I can’t believe it.” And then you focus on that. That’s when you get these rap battles and you have these guys going to war in the streets. But, if you pay attention to the love? You say, “Oh this guy did something to me? Fuck them. Let me just go still hustle. And the people who is holding me down, I’m gonna pay attention to them. I’m gonna hold them down. I’m gonna show them love.” That’s what it’s all about to me.

To be honest with you, it’s never been about the money with me. It’s always been about the hustle. I’m addicted to the hustle. I’m not addicted to the money. So, when I say this, I’m actually not talking about money at all. I want to hustle and I want to hustle more. I’m addicted to being busy. Have you ever seen me in Miami and I’m not doing nothing? I’m not in the studio, I’m not filming Drink Champs, I’m not doing on the run eating. Not just Miami. Or just New York. Do you just see me randomly and no events planned, I have nothing and I’m chilling? I’m miserable. I’m just telling you. I might tell you, “Yeah. I’m good!” Nah, I love to wake up and have something to do. Again, they said I was A.D.D., so I use that for my shield. I use that.

My preferred vodka, hands down, with no equivocation, is Ciroc. Hands down. I went to a Nas party the other day, and let me tell you something: There wasn’t a Ciroc in sight. Oh my God. I was going crazy. There was no Ciroc in sight. We gotta stop parties like this. If you don’t have Ciroc, we gotta ban it. We gotta send the Ciroc people and they’ll come and just make over your shit. You know how people makeover a person’s house? We gotta makeover people’s parties with Ciroc and Rose. No party is crazy without Ciroc or Rose. I’m just throwing it out there as an alcoholic.

I was banging on the lunchbox, and every time the teacher saw me, he would say, “You’ll never make it nowhere.” At one point, I believed it. That was before I was petty. Then I became petty, and I wanted to prove her wrong for no reason. That’s just something that’s real shit for me.

Mrs. Brown. PS13. You want the address? I don’t got the address. I don’t have no disrespect to her, but what I do have to say is, if it wasn’t for her, that was my first time using somebody for motivation. Like, haters is motivation. People shouldn’t be mad at their haters. I don’t always block my haters. Sometimes I just let them exist just to make sure, you know what I mean. Most of the time I block them, but twelve percent of the time, I’m like, “Alright cool. He was happy hating.” He was hating, but he was actually giving me points. Like, “NORE, you shouldn’t do that again.” And I’m like, “Damn. I felt like that too.” I ain’t mad at him.

You want to hear some funny shit? The original line was:

I hope you feel good and once you feel good
I’m from the hood and slime, I’m feeling real good

And Pharrell said, “I don’t like the way you said it.” It took like four days. He said, “Nore I was gonna mix the record but…” Because this was on the phone, but in my mind, he was saying, “I don’t like those words.” Again, I reluctantly went in there and changed those bars and every DJ continues to bring that part back. So, I gotta big-up Pharrell again for that. But the wordplay, I didn’t know if people would catch that. Pitching, for those that don’t know, that means hustling. There’s different ways you can hustle, just like there’s different ways you can pitch. I just wanted to say “underhand” and it worked. I can’t believe that’s the line that most DJ’s bring back.

The original line was, “Smoking blunts with B.I.G. was a moment my G,” but I know that we live in a day and time where if people don’t see it, then it didn’t happen.

I searched for pictures of me and Big, and I couldn’t find none. I didn’t want these comments like, “Where’s the picture Nore?”

The Big line might be more powerful, but the OVO line is more relevant and I can prove it.

This was a moment for me because he makes all of Drake’s shit. I’m a Drake fan. I just sat in the studio and just vibed with him. He just opened his doors to me.