From: Nas
djsheep
3,620 Posts
From: Nas
To: LA Reid, Steve Bartels, Steve Gawley, Michael Seltzer, Joseph Borrino, Chris Hicks
Subject: PUT MY SHIT OUT!
Peace to all,
With all do respect to you all, Nas is NOBODY's slave. This is not the 1800's, respect me and I will respect you.
I won't even tap dance around in an email, I will get right into it. People connect to the Artist @ the end of the day, they don't connect with the executives. Honestly, nobody even cares what label puts out a great record, they care about who recorded it. Yet time and time again its the executives who always stand in the way of a creative artist's dream and aspirations. You don't help draw the truth from my deepest and most inner soul, you don't even do a great job @ selling it. The #1 problem with DEF JAM is pretty simple and obvious, the executives think they are the stars. You aren't.... not even close. As a matter of fact, you wish you were, but it didn't work out so you took a desk job. To the consumer, I COME FIRST. Stop trying to deprive them! I have a fan base that dies for my music and a RAP label that doesn't understand RAP. Pretty fucked up situation
This isn't the 90's though. Beefing with record labels is so 15 years ago. @ this point I just need you all to be very clear where I stand and how I feel about "my label." I could go on twitter or hot 97 tomorrow and get 100,000 protesters @ your building but I choose to walk my own path my own way because since day one I have been my own man. I did business with Tommy Mottola and Donnie Einer, two of the most psycho dudes this business ever created. I worked well with them for one major reason....... they believed in me. The didn't give a fuck about what any radio station or magazine said....those dudes had me.
Lost Tapes is a movement and a very important set up piece for my career as it stands. I started this over 5 years ago @ Columbia and nobody knew what it was or what it did but the label put it out as an LP and the fans went crazy for it and I single handlely built a new brand of rap albums. It's smart and after 5 years it's still a head of the game. This feels great and you not feeling what I'm feeling is disturbing. Don't get in the way of my creativity. We are aligned with the stars here, this is a movement. There is a thing called KARMA that comes to haunt you when you tamper with the aligning stars. WE ARE GIVING THE PEOPLE EXACTLY WHAT THEY WANT. Stop throwing dog shit on a MAGICAL moment.
You don't get another Nas recording that doesn't count against my deal....PERIOD! Keep your bullshit $200,000.00 fund. Open the REAL budget. This is a New York pioneers ALBUM, there ain't many of us. I am ready to drop in the 4th quarter. You don't even have shit coming out! Stop being your own worst enemy. Let's get money!
-N.Jones
To: LA Reid, Steve Bartels, Steve Gawley, Michael Seltzer, Joseph Borrino, Chris Hicks
Subject: PUT MY SHIT OUT!
Peace to all,
With all do respect to you all, Nas is NOBODY's slave. This is not the 1800's, respect me and I will respect you.
I won't even tap dance around in an email, I will get right into it. People connect to the Artist @ the end of the day, they don't connect with the executives. Honestly, nobody even cares what label puts out a great record, they care about who recorded it. Yet time and time again its the executives who always stand in the way of a creative artist's dream and aspirations. You don't help draw the truth from my deepest and most inner soul, you don't even do a great job @ selling it. The #1 problem with DEF JAM is pretty simple and obvious, the executives think they are the stars. You aren't.... not even close. As a matter of fact, you wish you were, but it didn't work out so you took a desk job. To the consumer, I COME FIRST. Stop trying to deprive them! I have a fan base that dies for my music and a RAP label that doesn't understand RAP. Pretty fucked up situation
This isn't the 90's though. Beefing with record labels is so 15 years ago. @ this point I just need you all to be very clear where I stand and how I feel about "my label." I could go on twitter or hot 97 tomorrow and get 100,000 protesters @ your building but I choose to walk my own path my own way because since day one I have been my own man. I did business with Tommy Mottola and Donnie Einer, two of the most psycho dudes this business ever created. I worked well with them for one major reason....... they believed in me. The didn't give a fuck about what any radio station or magazine said....those dudes had me.
Lost Tapes is a movement and a very important set up piece for my career as it stands. I started this over 5 years ago @ Columbia and nobody knew what it was or what it did but the label put it out as an LP and the fans went crazy for it and I single handlely built a new brand of rap albums. It's smart and after 5 years it's still a head of the game. This feels great and you not feeling what I'm feeling is disturbing. Don't get in the way of my creativity. We are aligned with the stars here, this is a movement. There is a thing called KARMA that comes to haunt you when you tamper with the aligning stars. WE ARE GIVING THE PEOPLE EXACTLY WHAT THEY WANT. Stop throwing dog shit on a MAGICAL moment.
You don't get another Nas recording that doesn't count against my deal....PERIOD! Keep your bullshit $200,000.00 fund. Open the REAL budget. This is a New York pioneers ALBUM, there ain't many of us. I am ready to drop in the 4th quarter. You don't even have shit coming out! Stop being your own worst enemy. Let's get money!
-N.Jones
Comments
Shyne tells Sohh, that he wants to leave Def Jam Records. Po signed to the label eight months ago. He blames L.A. Reid for not understanding his vision and contemplates joining Cash Money.
I???m definitely trying to get with Cash Money but the Def Jam thing is a question mark right now. I???ve been fixing to get up out of there for a while now because [Island Def Jam CEO] L.A. Reid don???t care about hip-hop. The people up there, they don???t know what they???re doing. When you don???t have a strong leader, where you gonna go? They don???t care about hip-hop music. You give them a hip-hop record with an R&B singer, you ???might??? have a chance. They don???t care. You got The Roots, Ghostface, Nas, probably the best hip-hop roster you could imagine and they do nothing. L.A. Reid doesn???t want nothing to do with rappers ??? it???s nothing personal, I don???t have nothing personal with dude but he makes it known he doesn???t care about hip-hop. So I???m really interested in seeing who???s gonna replace him. Because I know he???s been replaced ??? so I wanna find out who???s gonna take his spot before I decide what I???m gonna do with Def Jam???The music that we make is responsible for pop, R&B, everything that???s jumping right now.
They gotta care about [what we've done] the way Jimmy Iovine cares about that, the way Lyor Cohen cares about that,??? Shyne added. ???I???m definitely not gonna scrap everything I recorded. I put in so much, I???ve come so far. From the first record I did when I got out to the new records I???ve done while going to all these different countries, I ain???t scrapping nothing. I paid for that. I???m not signed to Def Jam anyway, I just need to find another distributor. I might just have Cash Money do everything. Who knows? That???s the beauty about being in the business for yourself. You can decide where you want to go and what you want to do.???
When he was at LaFace it was his BS that caused alot of problems with Outkast, GoodieMob,TLC countless other projects from coming out. He is hated here in Atlanta so now the artist at Defjam have to deal with his incompetence.
Pointing out one's own status as a movement is never cool and generally non-movementy.