During the time when the BET Hip-Hop Awards were being filmed in Atlanta, a few weeks ago, reports started circulating that Flint, Michigan native Jon Connor had signed to Dr. Dre's Aftermath label.
Now that the 2013 Awards show finally aired, we got to hear Connor's actual announcement of the deal, which came during his BET Cypher. Connor sat down with MTV News to talk about the new deal and why he decided to announce it during his cypher.
"He [Dr. Dre] told me one time, the music is there...it was just at the point, just going in the studio and seeing if we had chemistry and vibed out as people," Connor explained. "You could be the greatest artist in the world but if you a dick ain't nobody gunna wanna work with you. That's what sealed the deal, it was like us being in the studio, vibing out, like I say it was the chemistry musically and the chemistry just as two good people."
The lyrical emcee continued to explain how he and Dre have the similar motivations, "The thing that drives me and Dre is one in the same. Like I'm not a dude that's driven by the money, I'm driven by the craft, I'm driven by the message, I'm driven by what I can do to help people and how I can influence people and that's Dre. Dre is all about the culture, the influence."
Finally, he spoke on his BET cypher and how the announcement of his singing to Aftermath made its way in the cypher. "I was supposed to do the BET Hip-Hop Awards cypher before this started happening, but then like the situation with Dre came about and I still hadn't wrote my cypher verse yet," Connor told MTV. "I was thinking, 'how can I end this? How can I make this a moment?' It's my first time doing the cypher and I wanted to make it a moment. I was like, let me just announce it at the BET Hip-Hop Awards, I ran it by Dre, he was like, 'yo, that's dope.'"
Watch the brief interview below and head here to check out the emcee's cypher.