What are some of the songs you’ve written that were placed in Power, Empire, etc.?

chief waKiL: I wrote “Can’t Trust Em,” performed by Hakeem for Empire. I also did “Get It Down Low” under one of my alias’ West Wes for a scene in Empire, and that song was also on the first season of Power. I have six songs placed in the next season of Power, possibly under my name chief waKiL. For How To Get Away With Murder, I did a collaboration with a guy and the song was called “Burn It,” using another alias Skeeball. I’ve also done music for a movie called The Nut Job, an animated movie about a squirrel. I did a song on there called “Fish Out Of Water.”

What was going through your mind when you realized you wouldn’t be credited for the music being placed in the Empire Soundtrack?

chief waKiL: I get writers credit, you’ll see my government name in those (Mansa Wakili). If you look up the credits, or like Google it, you’ll see it. At the end of the day as long as I get my writers credits, like what comes to me on that end – that’s fine. You might not see my name as performed by, sometimes the song doesn’t mesh with my brand; I wouldn’t mind telling people I did it, but it won’t necessarily be the song that matches with my brand. So that’s why I come up with alias’ just so it can separate chief waKiL from what I do by day or by night. 

How did you end up hooking up with Russell Simmons’ All Def Digital?

chief waKiL: My manager is real cool with this guy Amir, who works up there, and also a lot of my friends are up there. I got involved with Vine, I was big on the six second raps – got 300K fans. I was doing raps about the viners and what not and one of them told me to make a rap about his dog. I did it and it got like thousands and thousands of likes and then from there I was getting thousands of fans, and I was like ‘yo man, stay tuned – I got an album coming out’ and the album did really well. It kind of snowballed from there. A lot of my friends on Vine, went to All Def Digital, so that’s another connect.

Anything else we should check out?

chief waKiL: Just please go check out and buy my album on iTunes, if you ain’t got money, go to Soundcloud, go to TIDAL, Spotify. Enjoy it and stay tuned.