Prior to signing with RCA Records, Bryson Tiller was offered the chance to ink a deal with Drake’s OVO Sound imprint.

During an Bryson Tiller’s interview with Rob Markman for the Red Light Special podcast, the Louisville, Kentucky artist recalled how Drake’s offer came about.

“Nah, that was a real thing,” Tiller replies when asked whether the opportunity to sign with OVO Sound was a reality or just Internet speculation. “Drake and [Noah ‘40’ Shebib] had been talking to me and one day I got a text from Drake. I sent him a few songs, he listened to it and was like, ‘Yo, I love this song.’ And then the next text, before I could even text back, was, ‘I really wanna sign you to OVO.’ I stared at it for a long time and then I text my manager Neil… Those were his exact words, ‘I really wanna sign you to OVO.’”

Later on in the interview, Bryson Tiller spoke on passing up the offer.

“It was hard for me,” Tiller says. “As much as the whole Timbo thing made me feel like, ‘I’m buzzing out here, I’m about to do it,’ there was a lot of times where I really got discouraged and was just like, ‘Man, this ain’t gonna work. I don’t even wanna be an artist,’ just thinking negative things. I’m a real pessimistic person at times. So I just started thinking, ‘I need to sign to OVO or else I’m not gonna be anybody. I need to go ahead and do this, this is what I want. This is how it’s supposed to happen. I did the songs, the dope songs, Drake heard them and now he wants to sign me.’ I thought that was the plan, or God’s plan, but everything just went differently. That was one of the biggest decisions I ever had to make in my life. I’m super naïve when it comes to making business decisions. I signed to two independent labels before and neither of them worked out. This time, I had a whole team… We talked to 40 about it and even 40 was like, ‘This is not a bad deal from RCA’ so we just did it.”

Bryson Tiller’s interview with the Red Light Special podcast can be heard below:



For additional OVO Sound coverage, watch the following DX Daily:

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