I'd never been paid for the first Roses LP - it was 2002 before we received any royalties.
When I was in N.W.A. and didn't get paid all the money I was owed, that's when the business side of showbiz hit me.
I got me a hit record and I ain't never made a cent from it.
If you are a musician who has released albums, it would perhaps be morbidly interesting to know how much you would be owed if everyone who now has your music had actually bought your record.
I went to Washington to ask for a little residual payment for the people who had written films in the early, early days, people who never got any residuals on tapes or anything at all.
I did albums for Cash Money. I didn't do singles - I did whole albums for Cash Money - and at the end of the day, I'm saying I wasn't paid for albums, so its like you're doing 10 songs, and somebody pays you for 1.
All of these reissues were not authorized by me, I do not endorse them, the live album was put out without my permission, and I've not seen a dime at this point, either.
I did a lot of songs that I sold, but then they never came out and I never got paid for it. You learn real fast that the music industry, in the beginning, you're not going to get paid for a while, and then you start getting the accolades.
We never got anything out of the recordings. I'm still as broke as I was when I was with the Mothers.
I have a 200-song catalogue in the streets and I never got any money off that.
