Lupe Fiasco went into detail regarding his issues with his former label, Atlantic Records, on Twitter, Monday. The Drill Music in Zion rapper had been responding to a tweet from a fan who had claimed that Fiasco refused to “conform” to the label's expectations.
“Not accurate,” Fiasco replied to the fan. “I was comfortable making pop records. The issue was who controlled those records and what the ownership and splits were. Atlantic would only promote my records if they owned a large portion of them or if I signed a 360 deal. I gave Bruno Mars Just The Way You Are.”
When the fan thanked him for the clarification, Fiasco elaborated that it was the label that decided not to abide by the agreed-upon contracts: “The issue was never my ability to make hit or pop records. The issue wasn’t even the business per se. My contracts were solid. It’s when the label didn’t want to abide by the contracts anymore and started throwing shitty little curveballs out of FOMO and greed. All bad after that.”
Fiasco signed with Atlantic back in 2005 after having a good word put in from Jay-Z. In the years afterward, both Fiasco and Atlantic maintained a tumultuous relationship, with the rapper even referring to it as "Bad" in a 2014 interview with SiriusXM.
In more tweets, he continued: “It’s a team. Let win as a team. They were calling fouls on our own plays AFTER we already won the game!! I was like WTF are y’all doing??? After The Cool I was done. I stuck around to complete my contract but I checked out in 09.
"I only put this out there again & again cuz folks think I be full of ego and or that I’m some hard to work with artist etc. but I’ve been in some deeply wack situations in this business that took all kinds of adjustments to stay sane and progress. I protect my peace at all costs.”
Drill Music in Zion was released on June 24 through 1st & 15th Too and Thirty Tigers. The project features Nayirah and Ayesha Jaco.
Check out Fiasco's series of tweets below.
[Via]
