Stro signed with Mass Appeal records in October 2018 after having rocked under Epic Records several years before. The 22-year-old recently spoke about his trajectory from a pop-focused labeled to his current home with <a href="/profile/Nas" class="text-word" target="_blank" >Nas</a>&#8217; team. He specifies that no ill will was intended when he shouted, &#8220;Tell L.A. Reid I&#8217;m not a pop star&#8221; on the intro of Nice 2 Meet You, Again.
&#8220;I actually seen L.A. Reid, a few weeks before I released the EP and I was laughing. I told him, &#8220;Yeah, I just signed to Nas.&#8221; I just seen his son Aaron Reid, too,&#8221; Stro said. &#8220;They cool as sh*t. It&#8217;s nothing personal. It&#8217;s just hip-hop. That&#8217;s an element we forgot about in the culture. Just speaking what&#8217;s on your mind at the moment. It&#8217;s not always meant in the serious tone.&#8221;
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img decoding="async" src="https://editor.urbanlinx.net/wp-content/uploads/userfiles/52/99/359952_14c050a4c9d31f5e2c3672c096f70268.jpg" alt="Stro Speaks On Leaving LA Reid's Epic Records &amp; Signing With Nas' Mass Appeal"><figcaption>Johnny Nunez/WireImage</figcaption></figure>
He also spoke of his new label head. Though he did not have an extensive conversation with Nas, the vet did offer him some words of encouragement. &#8220;I mentioned my plan as far as putting out Nice 2 Meet You, Again and the next body of work and how I was going to approach the actual records and sh*t like that. I told him I had a fear that sometimes it&#8217;s too lyrical, sometimes people don&#8217;t want it,&#8221; Stro explained. &#8220;But he made the point that now people actually want to hear that sh*t.
So, you shouldn&#8217;t hold back. You should go out every time because people actually want to hear it. I feel like that&#8217;s true though. I think we entertain the bullsh*t, but we know the difference between soul food and McDonald&#8217;s. Sometimes, people want soul food.&#8221;
Read his full interview <a href="https://www.vibe.com/2019/02/stro-feature-interview" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">here</a>.