Igår skrev vi om att Clipse och Pusha T avslöjat att de lämnade Def Jam då man vägrade censurera eller ta bort en vers av Kendrick Lamar på deras kommande skiva “Let God Sort Em Out”. Och snackar man den populära termen “standing on business” så är Pusha T kanske ansiktet utåt för det. Enligt hans manager betalade han nämligen ett sjusiffrigt belopp för att komma ur dealen och släppa albumet med mer kreativ frihet via Roc Nation.

“If you’re an artist, your whole life is to create art and put it out. If someone’s telling you that you can’t do that, or you have to do it within the confines of whatever box they put you in, that’s like creative jail”, säger hans manager Steven Victor i en intervju med Billboard som grävt djupare i detta.

Han berättar senare vidare i mer detalj kring vad som hände när dispyten kring Kendrick Lamar-versen gick till vägs ända.

“I went to them and I said, ‘Let us put the song out somewhere else since you guys have an issue with it. You guys won’t have to stand behind whatever complications come from it. We’ll put the song out somewhere else, and we’ll license it back to you guys when the album comes out’. Their response was, ‘How about you just find somewhere else to put out Clipse? Just pay something to us and put it out somewhere else'”, berättar han och fortsätter:

“So they said, ‘Find another deal, and let’s figure out a business’. They didn’t drop us. They were like, ‘Pay us this money’ — which was an exorbitant amount of money, a s—t ton of money — ‘and we’ll let you out the deal’. That’s what happened. We paid them the money, an insane amount of money. It wasn’t, like, $200,000. It was a lot of money for an artist to come up with. They bought themselves out of the deal.”

Han får sedan frågan om det handlade om ett sjusiffrigt belopp, varpå han svarar. “Yeah”.

Victor ringde sedan till Jay-Z och de två löste en fördelaktig deal sinsemellan.

“Once I knew that we had, in principle, a deal in place with Def Jam [to leave], I got on the phone with Jay-Z. I was like, ‘Look, this is what’s happening. We’ve been talking about doing X, Y, Z, together. There’s an opportunity here to do this album. What do you think?'” 

“He hit me back right away, like, ‘You just made my day. Let’s figure it out. What do we need to get it done?’ I went back to Pusha, and said, ‘Listen, Jay’s gonna give us a very artist-friendly deal, we get to own the masters, and they’ll put the marketing power of Roc Nation behind it. You guys are friends. It’s a great outcome’. We worked out the deal in less than 24 hours”.

I intervju adresserar Victor också de två verserna för Rick Ross och Pop Smoke som Push tidigare nämnt, där UMG också hindrade rapparen från att medverka på låtarna på grund av hans verser.

“What happened on the Pop Smoke song is that UMG thought that he was dissing Drake on that song. He wasn’t, but they thought he was. Pop Smoke was released on my label [Victor Victor], and obviously I managed Pusha. So they came to me and said, ‘We’re not going to put this out now, unless you get Pusha to change these lyrics’. Even though it has nothing to do with Pop Smoke, they’re like, ‘Either he changes these lyrics, or we’re not putting the album out'”. 

“What happened to freedom of speech? First of all, he’s not dissing Drake. But how do you get to tell him to just change his lyrics or you’re not putting this album out?”

Läs hela intervjun här. “Let God Sort Em Out” släpps den 11 juli via Roc Nation.

Foto: Def Jam / Universal Music Group