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Rapper Jae Millz has gained famed in the hip-hop world, yet the conventional side of his professional career has barely even started. The future is bright with this kid. InsideHoops.com editor Jeff Lenchiner met with Millz in New York at an EBC/Rucker Park event (a special event in Madison Square Garden) in August for an exclusive interview.

InsideHoops.com: What's up with you lately?

Jae Millz: We're recording Back to the Future album, I've been heavy on the mixtapes, the DVDs, the battle schene. But right now we're just recording the album. We got the single right now, "I like that," produced by Cool and Dre out of Miami. The album is finished. I got production from DJ Khalid, Cool and Dre, Swizz Beatz, T.I., Slim Thug on the album. I'm working, man. I'm grinding. New producer, Amadeus, my man Omen, Cool Cats. It's real serious. I'm trying to keep it Harlem, New York City. Bring hip-hop back to hip-hop.

InsideHoops.com: What's right about hip-hop lately, and what's wrong?

Jae Millz: It's cool, it's a beautiful thing, because it's an outlet for a lot of people to get their families straight, to get out of the hood. But I think right now the music is being abandoned. People aren't giving 110 percent of their music right now, so everything is shifted around. I'm trying to get it back to everybody giving 110, 120 percent of what they're really going through, putting that into their music. So people can really respect the music. Now it's getting repetative. Everybody getting mad at the South, as if that's the reason why new York not winning, because of the South. Naw, they're putting in their work and they're grinding, so that's what we gotta do, too. That's what I'm trying to do in Back to the Future, trying to take it back to when it was all around hip-hop and take it to the future. It's my first album, highly anticipated. I think I'm going to be around for a while.

InsideHoops.com: Talk about what you're trying to do, the response you're feeling from people, the effect you feel you have.

Jae Millz: It's about showing people love. I'm a humble dude. I know I got a lot of fans, as well as me not selling a lot of records yet, or not having an album out or not really going on major tours, I still got a big fan base. So that alone just lets me know that it's really people out there that love me. I don't have to sell records, I don't have to have a bunch of big songs on the radio. I put my videos out whenever I do, I put my mixtapes out whenever I do. I just stay consistent on a street level and whatever I put out. And just knowing that I got real fans, that just pushes me to make good music.

InsideHoops.com: And what's been the high point of your career, your life, anything?

Jae Millz: I would say the first time I ever saw my video on TV. The first video I ever did was "No no no." I did it out in Jamaica, produced by Scram Jones, Little X directed the video. So when I did the video and I went out to Jamaica and I saw it on TV, like on BET, and it started coming on every day, it kind of shocked me a little bit. I wasn't used to that. I'm still a fan of a lot of rappers and a lot of music and a lot of shit that's going on right now. So just seeing myself on BET, that did it for me, man. It gave me inspiration and motivation that it can really happen. No matter what you go through, you're there. Once you're on TV and you're coming on every day, and you're on the radio, you're there with them. You're there with everybody else.