CEO Mase / Wired Up Ent
( Lil Tex
http://www.ugrap.de/interview.php?id=168 )
Fuck You, Pay Me
Mason LaDue is the CEO of Wired Up Entertainment. Although Wired Up has only been established as a record label since 2005, LaDue has been around some of the most successful people to ever record on Texas turf. Growing up in Dallas, Texas he experienced a variety of cultures and ways of life that most people in his position do not witness, more less are a part of. “I grew up on rap music. I remember sitting in my damn cushion chair with my sippy cup watching NWA and eventually Dr Dre and Snoop and that entire gangster rap shit in the early 90s. DJ Quick, MC Eiht, all that shit.” LaDue was born and raised in Dallas but has lived in several communities around the metroplex. Mainly Oak Cliff. “I’m Dallas, Texas to the bone. I represent Dallas as a whole.” As a kid, LaDue often experienced a cultural difference amongst his peers. “Growing up like I grew up, I had a different set of ideas and ways of seeing things than the kids around me, so naturally, I had some gravitate towards that, and some people that hated it.” Needing a change of pace, LaDue’s family moved to Lewisville, Texas. “Of all places, Lewisville is where I really found out about myself. I was so busy proving a point, when I realized that shit didn’t matter, I sat back and did me and it was all good.” Keeping close with his friends from his child hood, LaDue kept a low profile in high school. “I was so far away from my real true friends in high school, but I fucked with everyone in Lewisville, but wasn’t tight with anyone. Everyone knew me, but I didn’t fuck with him or her like that. My high school was whack.” LaDue credits that to him really discovering music, mainly Texas underground rap, that let him release and get into his own zone. “I was in high school from like 1997 to 2001. So of course I was jamming all the screw tapes, Fat Pat, Scarface, UGK, all of that shit. I also got a lot of family from New Orleans, so I was up on B.G., Soulja Slim, UNLV, Weezy, Juvy, Turk all of them way before anyone else. People looked at me crazy because of the shit I was listening to in my headphones.” It was then when Mason started becoming more curious about the music scene directly influencing his city. “Being from the hood, I saw these cats that were making songs on the radio, and I couldn’t believe my eyes. Seeing The Gator Main at the gas station was mind blowing, running into Bo Leg, seeing Pookie and Lucci, Pimpsta, Bo Bo Luciano all of them, I was immediately submersed in the scene, they raised me.” LaDue was active in sports at Marcus High School, where he graduated from, which kept him in a circle at school that people wanted to be a part of. “I was the music man. When everyone quit hating and started realizing I was playing Juvenile a YEAR before Back Dat Azz Up, I became well known. I was the music man at house parties. CD Burners just came out, I was making a killing burning mix tapes and selling them at school.” It was then and there that made LaDue want to piece the puzzle together to make music his life. “I wasn’t good at it though, I needed something else to get me to where I wanted to go. I was a decent athlete, so playing sports in college was always an option, so that’s the route I took. The first college I went to was a Baptist University in Arkansas, which was actually one of my last colleges to really consider.” That is where LaDue met Andre Robinson, his roommate and teammate on the football team. Robinson grew up in Acres Homes in Houston, Texas, often running with the musical influences LaDue credited to his up bringing. “I remember the night I realized how attainable all this shit was. We had a Saturday Night game against the college in the same city, and Paul Wall and Lew Hawk showed up to the game.” They were there watching their friend, Andre Robinson, play. “After the game, we hung out and chilled, went to a house party, didn’t do too much, but I just couldn’t believe it. 2001? Kicking it with Swisha House? I was ON.” It was after both LaDue and Robinson left Arkansas and headed their separate ways that really turned CEO Mase onto the Texas Underground Rap Scene. “I went back home to Dallas, chilled for a semester, you know, got my mind right, got some money up, and thought that going back to college was my best bet.” LaDue then enrolled at Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas. “With Dre back home in Acres Homes, and me in College Station, we were only an hour or so away from each other, I didn’t know a damn person in College Station, so I took my ass to the city [Houston] to kick it with Dre.” There is where he garnered the friendships of many Texas artists that currently can be seen on the Billboard top 200. “I like to say that’s where I got turned out musically. I was always hip to game as far as local music goes, especially in Dallas, but now I was in the mix in Houston, when Houston was really the place to be.” In Houston, LaDue started to learn the ins-and-outs of the business and the craft itself. “There was a CD store in Bryan called The Shack. That’s where I would go to get my music and chop it up, and keep a tab on music.” The store was owned by Dirty 3rd Records’ DJ Bull and Bernard Gambrell. “Bull was never there, but Bernard was always there, and me and him got real cool.” Eventually Gambrell brought Mason in on his business ventures. “I told him I wanted to be a part of something. I wasn’t really hungry for money, I just wanted to learn, and so I started working the shop when I didn’t have shit else to do. I learned the retail side of selling CDs. I learned the CD trade, the paper routes, all that shit. At this point, I had too much information and knowledge to not try to do something with the music.” Becoming more involved, LaDue was around for the establishment of Gambrell’s record label, Street Pharmacy. “Street Pharmacy was my first official affiliation. I did this, I did that, but Street Pharmacy was who I was with, so it was all about that.” In College Station is where Mason first met DJ Yellaboy, who at that time was affiliated with Boss Hogg Outlawz. “So now all the sudden, I am running with Boss Hogg and Street Pharmacy. I couldn’t soak all the game that was being thrown out.” LaDue continued to gain interest in making this his life. “It was probably the dumbest thing I have ever done and the smartest thing I have ever done. I quit going to school and did music in College Station full time.” Music was really picking up for LaDue in his life, and then it all came crashing down in one night. “Music wasn’t paying my bills. Plain and simple. Put two and two together. Got indicted. Caught a case, whatever you want to call it. I had to change shit up, I had to get out of College Station.” Around that time, a name came back around that LaDue was familiar with. “I remember everyone started to gas me up about trying to rap, you know white boy, gold grill, doing it big, perfect image, blah blah. Straight up, I never rapped. Never wanted to, just want to hear other people do it! So when it came to being a artist, I didn’t know the first thing, I had it all wrong.” One night, LaDue traveled to Corsicana, Texas to be a part of a show featuring The Gator Main. “A couple of my close friends were kin to his running mates, and so we met up with them and rode to Corsicana and was a part of Gator Main’s show.” That is where Gator approached LaDue about being a part of his movement. “I couldn’t believe it. I think I was bulletproof for about a week. I mean this was Gator Main, I done walked the block, kiss my ass, twenty inch Dayton’s. This was a Dallas legend that he wanted me to be apart of what he has going on. I knew the answer before he popped the question.” Needing out of College Station anyway, LaDue took the time to re locate back to his hometown. “Right back ON the slab in no time man, one day I just opened my eyes and I am back in Dallas trapping the night out.” Back in Dallas, Mason was part of Gator Main’s Ball Playa Entertainment. “I credit Gator for doing a lot of things for me, he put me down with a lot of people doing music in Dallas, and a lot more outside of music. I never laid a piece of a verse, I was just around, once again, doing nothing but soak up game.” The Gator Main had another youngster along for the ride; his name was Lil Tex, a young rapper out of Gator Main’s hood of Highland Hills. “I remember the first night I actually kicked it with Tex. We always knew about each other, ran with people that knew each other, stuff like that. But the first night we actually hung out together, we got into an argument over a seat in a damn limo. Gator Main was doing a show at Starck with Lil Wayne, so we all rode in a limo to the club. I wanted a window seat to holler a bitches, Tex wanted a window seat to holler at bitches. It was all good, but just a funny first time encounter. I ended up stealing that seat from him on the way home, ha ha.” Living back in Dallas, running with an artist he once looked up to, LaDue thought he was on his way. “I really thought I was on. Gator was from Highland Hills, but he had me thinking I owned Oak Cliff. I was running with the right people to think that.” That wasn’t the healthiest of environments for LaDue, who was just placed on probation for his cases in College Station. “I didn’t give a fuck, I didn’t even recognize probation. No meetings, no piss test, no payments, nothing.” In no time, LaDue was violated. “I had money, so I thought I could buy my way out of everything, WRONG.” Everything came to a grinding halt. “When the constable came to my house and arrested me for probation violation, I couldn’t believe it. Everything came crumbling down; it was one of the worse days I can remember. Gator bailed me out, so I was back on the streets in less than 12 hours, but the simple fact that I violated had my mind completely off of music.” 3 months later, LaDue was sentenced to 2 years in State Jail. “That was a real shock, I thought they would violate me, I would sit in their county for a couple of months and be done, when that judge told me 24 months in TDC? I couldn’t believe it, I didn’t want to believe it, and I think I slept for my first 3 weeks being locked up.” LaDue needed a new path. “I thought that this might be the right time for a change of pattern. I appreciated everyone for everything they did, but I needed to do me for the first time in a long time. Out of everyone I came in contact with, out of everyone who supposedly signed me or had me on a record label, Lil Tex was the only one to keep in touch with me.” LaDue and Tex talked, and wrote, and eventually decided on expanding their side project, Wired Up Entertainment. “We just decided to do shit for ourselves, no hate, we are going to meet everyone at the top, real talk.” After pulling some legal strings, and good behavior, LaDue was paroled after 8 months. “I was locked up from August 2005 until April of 2006. When I got home, I knew what time it was, time to do this music thing for real.” Tex and LaDue immediately began working on getting Tex’s first underground under Wired Up Entertainment out. “Apparently we chose the route with the most speed bumps and pot holes a road could have, but we did it. We learned a lot of shit the hard way, and nothing came easy, but we churned out I GOT NEXT, and released it September 22, 2006.” Although it has been an uphill battle with lots of twists and turns, but LaDue and Wired Up Entertainment are on their way. “Expanding the empire, man, got to keep grinding. We got two youngsters with Wired Up now, I got a street team coming, I got a modeling company being developed, and I got all kind of shit coming. We have shows, features, people wanting damn autographs, its crazy and this isn’t even the half of it.” Wired Up Entertainment or Mason LaDue for that matter does not plan on stopping any time soon. “At this point, its like if music doesn’t work out for me, I will not really know what to do, I am in too deep now. So instead of hoping the shit work out, I’m going to pray a little, and really just force this shit to work. I don’t care if I have to get a circle into a square; Wired Up Entertainment is going to be a success. My whole life I have been putting circles into squares and making shit work, its nothing new to me.”
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