Below, is an exclusive interview we held with producer, mixer and recording engineer Mike “Banger” Cadahia, who works closely with Lil Wayne and the Young Money/Cash Money family every day and night. In this interview, Mike speaks about his job, Lil Wayne, YMCMB, the “That’s What They Call Me” leak, how Weezy reacted to selling over a million copies of Tha Carter IV in the first week of the album being released, and more! Banger also says Tunechi is working on a new project, but wouldn’t tell us what it is (probably the I Can’t Feel My Face collaboration).

LWHQ: Tell us about yourself Mike? How long have you been creating beats and engineering for?
Mike Banger: I lost exact count but maybe over ten years. I started playing drums first for a few years then got an MPC and started producing. I eventually got Pro Tools and learned to record and mix.

LWHQ: What made you get into this career?
Mike Banger: I just love music and haven’t found anything better to do yet. It’s also great to know how many people you can reach doing this. I like being in the studio environment at any hour so its easy to pull an all-nighter. I heard you can make a lot of money too.

LWHQ: How many hours does Lil Wayne keep you in the studio for per week?
Mike Banger: I don’t know. I’m in the studio everyday at least once on my own regardless unless it’s a special occasion. How many hours a week do I spend out of the studio is the question.

LWHQ: What’s your favorite Wayne track that you recorded and mixed?
Mike Banger: “Right Above It” was my first real major mix and I think that reached #1 on charts so it’s good to know my ears can be trusted at that level. “Bill Gates” is dope too. “YM Banger” was produced, recorded, and mixed by me so you can’t forget that one of course.

LWHQ: Have you produced more tracks for Weezy that we can be looking out for in the future after “YM Banger” got so much positive feedback?
Mike Banger: There’s that one with the wrong version leaked “That’s What They Call Me”. I mixed it already but I don’t know if it should be leaked or be held for another project. I’m looking to do more tracks with everyone in YM though now that I’m more comfortable in this position. Millz got one, Gudda did one too and I’m hoping on doing a lot more collaboration group tracks like “YM Banger”.

LWHQ: Do you have a favorite artist from Young Money who you love working with?
Mike Banger: Yeah Wayne. I actually like it the most when everyone is in the studio busy working together.

LWHQ: Have you worked with anyone from Cash Money, such as Birdman?
Mike Banger: Stunna comes in once in a while and he also did one of my tracks too, but I don’t know about anyone else since I’ve really just been busy with Wayne.

LWHQ: What other music artists have you never worked with, but you would love to one day?
Mike Banger: I don’t know. I love hip hop and through Wayne I’ve somehow ended up working on a lot of my favorite artists projects already. I’ve gotten the opportunity to touch sessions from Busta Rhymes, Kanye West, Tech N9ne, Cory Gunz, Nicki Minaj, Drake, Eminem, Nas, Jadakiss, and N.O.R.E., but they usually just email each other the songs. I guess I would like to witness more physical collaborations between the artists.

LWHQ: What was Wayne’s initial reaction to selling nearly a million albums in the first week?
Mike Banger: He just relayed the information to me on the jet in mid air, we congratulated everyone on the team, and kept on working. Then we started joking acting all nonchalant about it like: “A mill in a week huh? hmm, not too bad. It could have been worse.”

LWHQ: Has Tune been back in the studio working on any other projects? Such as Dedication 4, or the collabo album with Drake, etc.?
Mike Banger: Yeah, we never left the studio so rest assured the next project is already on its way. I can’t really say what that is yet though but maybe I’ll tweet it.

LWHQ: Do you have any advice for any upcoming producers/engineers?
Mike Banger: I would say to really work on your craft till you feel you are truly ready to compete in the business and expect long hours of unpaid work, possibly many years. Be who you want to be at all times even when you’re at the bottom with nothing. Preserve your creativity. Be influenced by your inspirations and keep in mind that one day you might be in a room surrounded by all of them.

LWHQ: Any last words, websites or shout outs you would like to leave the readers with?
Mike Banger: Shout out to Wayne, check out my website MikeBanger.com, @MikeBanger on Twitter, Young Money we’re the greatest! Shout out to T-Streets on the studio bus with me, thank you HQ for the interview, one time for the 305, and everyone go get C4.

Shout out to Kronnick for setting up the interview!

Today is Lil Tunechi‘s 29th birthday! Everyone at LilWayneHQ would just like to wish Weezy a very happy birthday and hope he has a great day. If you want to leave any b-day messages or wishes for Wayne, then feel free to post them in the comments section below and I will try and get them sent to Tune.

I wonder what Birdman will surprise Lil Wayne with this year

Now before some of you start saying this blog post is full of old news, I’m aware of that. I just thought that some of this news wasn’t worth its own post on LilWayneHQ, so this is why I’m doing a post with all of the news in one!

Anyways, Lil Wayne has picked up another great achievement in his music career, by being placed in the 2012 Guinness Book Of World Records for having the most US Hot 100 hits. Over the past 10 years, Weezy has had over 60 tracks that made the Hot 100 chart. Tunechi was previously inducted into the Guinness Book Of World Records for having the most “likes” on Facebook in 24 hours.

In other Wayne news, I have recently added all of the lyrics to his latest album, Tha Carter IV. You can check the lyrics out here (I also included the bonus songs). Talking about C4, the album sold 116,817 copies in its 3rd week of being released. This means that the total sales for the album are around: 1,300,000.

Jae Millz grabs his Young Money boss Lil Wayne for the first single off his upcoming Nothing Is Promised album. This track is called “Forever Winning“, and you can stream/download it below:

Download: Jae Millz – Forever Winning (Feat Lil Wayne)

LWHQ exclusive

Below, is an exclusive interview LilWayneHQ.com held with producer/music artist Detail, who has been working closely with Lil Wayne and the YMCMB crew recently. In the interview, Detail speaks on music, the first time he met Weezy, Tune‘s upcoming Tha Carter IV album, and more.

LWHQ: Tell us about yourself Detail? How long have you been a music artist and creating beats for? What made you get into this career?
Detail: I love Music! I’ve been doing this music and creating beats since I was 16, and I am now 26. What made me get into this game is the fact that I was told I couldn’t get in.

LWHQ: Do you have more fun spending time as a producer or as an actual artist?
Detail: I have more fun working people than working myself.

LWHQ: What other music artists have you never worked with, but you would love to one day?
Detail: John Mayor, and I would like to work with myself a lil’ more.

LWHQ: How did you meet Lil Wayne, and what’s the experience like in the studio with Wayne?
Detail: I did the single for Akon called “I’m So Paid” and I met Wayne on the video set of that… shout out my nigga Jeezy, he was on that song. The experience with Wayne in the studio is random, like you don’t know what to expect, but your gonna get there.

LWHQ: Have you been working with any artists from Young Money Entertainment or Cash Money Records?
Detail: Absolutely, yeah they all family

LWHQ: Tell us about Tha Carter IV; what can we expect? Carter 2 style? Rebirth style? lots of auto-tune? features?
Detail: First and foremost, there is no auto-tune on “How To Love”. I’ll give any producer or engineer 10k if they find any vocal sign of auto-tune on there. With features, I don’t want to spill the beans.

LWHQ: How many songs have you done for C4, and will Weezy or anyone from YMCMB be on any of your upcoming projects?
Detail: I’ve done a bunch songs with Wayne… he has a good ear, whatever he chooses he can have. Anybody else, of course any smashes they want to do lets get it, it’s family.

LWHQ: Do you feel that Tha Carter IV can live up to the hype, and do you feel it has the same potential and power as Tha Carter III did?
Detail: You got to think of it like this, when you got an icon that gets it like Lil Wayne, they get it. When LeBron left Cleveland and went to Miami, did he live up to the hype?… simple mathematics.

LWHQ: Any last words, websites or shouts outs you would like to leave the readers with?
Detail: Find me and see me at LilWayneHQ.com, and find me and see me exclusively at IAmDetail.com! Don’t follow me on twitter unless I follow you first hahaha… @DetaiL.

LWHQ: Thanks for your time Detail, we appreciate you giving us this interview. Everybody at LilWayneHQ.com and YoungMoneyHQ.com would like to wish you the best of luck in the future.
Detail: YMCMB Luv.

Shout out to Andy for setting up the interview, and don’t forget to like Detail on Facebook!

Detail shouts out LilWayneHQ.com

Wassup Lil Wayneiacs, I’ve just finished working on and installing a new design for LilWayneHQ, which everyone should now be able to see. I’m still looking through some pages for bugs, but it looks like everything right now is looking and working good! If you come across an error or bug, then please let me know via email. Also, please leave a comment on this post with your thoughts on this new style and any feedback you may have. Don’t just leave a comment saying “it sucks”, without telling me what sucks

Some other good news is that I have finally re-opened the downloads section on LWHQ, where you can download all of Weezy‘s mixtapes and music videos. You can access the downloads page here!

Last week, Angie Martinez dropped Mary J. Blige‘s “Someone To Love Me” remix featuring Lil Wayne and Diddy with tags. Now we have the tagless version for y’all, which you can stream/download below.

Download: Mary J. Blige – Someone To Love Me (Remix) (Feat Lil Wayne & Diddy) [No DJ]

An unofficial Weezy mixtape titled “The Return Of Nino Brown” was released today also, which recaps all of Tune‘s latest music. You all know I don’t normally post unofficial tapes, but this will be good for your collection just in case you missed some of Wayne‘s records. You can check out and download the mixtape here!

Oh, and we will be getting Birdman and Lil Wayne‘s “Fire Flame Remix” music video this week!

It was a Young Money/Cash Money 106 & Party New Year’s Eve Special last night on BET! You can check out most of the YMCMB family performing live and speaking to Terrence and Rocsi all in the video above. Lil Wayne performed “Miss Me” and “Right Above It” with Drake, “6 Foot, 7 Foot” with Cory Gunz, and “Fire Flame Remix” with Birdman.

If you are following me on Twitter, you would of seen that this show came on early in England and so I was tweeting everything that was happening on the show (like who performed what, and any announcements made). You can read some of the stuff that happened, such as Tunechi wearing a pair of teddy bear sneakers and punching Lil Chuckee in the face, here.

In the video above, Lil Wayne wishes us the fans a Merry Christmas and says: “I hope you get every single thing you want. I got what I want and that’s y’all“.

Everyone at LilWayneHQ would like to wish all of our visitors a Merry Christmas too, and we hope that you are all enjoying your holiday

As a bonus, you can download the CDQ version of Weezy‘s “RappaPomPom” track that leaked unfinished in 2007. The song was produced by STREETRUNNER and features Junior Reid.

Download: Lil Wayne – RappaPomPom (Feat Junior Reid) [CDQ]

Today (9/27/2010), is Lil Wayne‘s 28th birthday! Everyone at LilWayneHQ.com would like to wish Weezy a happy birthday and hope he has a great day, even though we know he can’t spend his birthday like he would have wanted to.

Just over a month until Tunechi is back home