Joell Ortiz: Can’t Stop The Hustle

“So many rappers lack an ounce of the work ethic that Brooklyns Joell Ortiz possesses. He might have been turned down by countless labels, but he kept working and kept knocking on the doors until someone answered. Perhaps labels thought he was too fat, maybe they thought he would be hard to market as a Hispanic rapper with a last name like Ortiz, but perhaps they were all wrong.

Enter West Coast super producer Dr. Dre, responsible for launching the careers of Eminem, 50 Cent, Snoop Dogg, and The Game. Dre saw what others didnt see. He saw the raw talent he could mold into another successful protégé and scooped up Ortiz to his Aftermath roster, which is exactly what he did when he flew Ortiz to California to meet him face to face. “He wanted to make sure I wasnt a knuckle head,” says Ortiz.” Ortiz left California knowing that Dre had welcomed him into the Aftermath family, an all-star label with a historic track record. However he had an independent album that he had pretty much completed and wanted to release called The Brick: Bodega Chronicles on Koch Records. At first Dre was reluctant to letting Ortiz release the LP, until he heard it, which is when he gave Ortiz his blessing the next day, saying it was a hot album and could only help the buzz for his Aftermath release.”

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