Hard work gives lie to Allen’s ‘Ain’t Ready’

Hoodie Allen has never been one to wait for things to happen.

After all, the Plainview, N.Y., native did leave a promising job at Google to pursue his career as a rapper, launching his own label to make it happen in 2011. Two Top 10 albums and a No. 1 rap album later — last year’s “Happy Camper” — and not much has changed.

“I like being proactive,” Allen said, from a tour stop in Texas. “I have no label, no manager . ... You have to make things happen for yourself.”

Allen says he is planning to push “Ain’t Ready,” from his recent album “The Hype,” to radio as a single, even though most commercial radio stations’ playlists are overwhelmingly filled with majorlabel acts.

“I think that it’s a song that could sound great on the musical landscape right now,” he said of the dance-leaning track that would fit in well between songs from Justin Bieber and the One Direction guys’ solo singles. “I can’t sit and wait, letting that moment pass.”

Even Allen admits that it’s an uphill battle getting a song on commercial radio without help from a major label. “Oh, it’s nearly impossible,” he said, laughing. “But every year there’s a couple of songs that do it. Why can’t this be one of those songs? If you don’t try you’ll never know. ‘You have to try’ is what’s gotten me here in the first place.”

That attitude informs pretty much everything Allen does, whether it’s putting out a musically diverse album like “The Hype” or bringing a full band on tour with him to bring the wide array of his musical ideas to life.

“I made a lot of songs when I was working on this album — more than 40 songs,” he says. “I wanted to find a way to thread it together, but then you run the risk of being repetitive.”