Juicy J Slams His Record Company in New Song, Then Backs Down

Jem Aswad
·4 min read

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UPDATE: Juicy J’s social-media rant apparently helped to resolve his issues with Columbia Records, although we’d advise him not to make a habit of it. Original article is below his tweet.

 

Rapper Juicy J is apparently involved in a dispute with his label, Columbia Records, and was agitated enough early Saturday to fire off a series of nasty social media posts directed at the label, and even a new song called “F— Columbia Records.”

While the nature of the dispute was unclear at the time of this article’s publication, according to Juicy’s posts, it appears the label does not want to release his new album, at least not in the way or at the time he desires.

While “F— Columbia Records” isn’t much of a song — merely a couple of verses of ranting at the label over a repeated “F— y’all hoes” — descriptive lines include, “If I waited on Columbia then I’d be out here broke/ I sold albums, sold out tours, but I never sold my soul/ N—a do all this f—in’ grindin’, hustling’ 24/7/ Soon as my sh– start bubblin’ up, they want all the credit.” Along with a series of posts leading up to the song, Juicy posted a brief video clip of himself dancing around a room, flipping the bird while it plays.

Reps for the label and Juicy did not immediately respond to Variety’s requests for comment.

The tirade began with a tweet from Juicy stating, “F— @Columbia Records I’m gonna leak my whole album stay tuned,” then he dropped the song on Soundcloud and YouTube a couple of hours later.

The song’s post was accompanied by a 1990s-era photo of Prince with the word “Slave” written on his face; Juicy is clearly attempting to draw a parallel between his situation with Columbia and that of Prince’s with Warner Bros. Records during the 1990s. Prince famously feuded with that label, to which he was signed for the first 19 years of his career, initially over the fact that the company declined to release the prolific artist’s albums as often as he wanted, and ultimately over the entire major-label contractual model; he appeared publicly for several months with the word “slave” written on his face as a symbol of protest. Prince separated from Warner in 1996 and from that point on, owned all of his recordings and licensed them to a variety of labels. A couple of years before Prince’s death, he inked a new deal with Warner that granted him ownership over many of his early recordings with the label.

Juicy J’s song concludes with Prince’s acceptance speech for the Artist of the Decade honor at the 2000 Soul Train Awards, in which he says, “As long as you’re signed to a contract, you will take a minority share of the winnings.”

A founding member of Three Six Mafia — who won an Academy Award in 2006 for their song “It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp,” from the film “Hustle & Flow” — Juicy J has focused on a solo career over the past decade, initially teaming up with Wiz Khalifa’s Taylor Gang label and then signing with Columbia in 2012, first via a deal with Dr. Luke’s Kemosabe imprint. (Over the years, Three Six Mafia released several albums through Columbia or its parent company, Sony Music.) He has released just two solo albums with the label — the most recent being 2017’s “Rubba Band Business” — and a collaborative album with Khalifa and others called “Rude Awakening.” However, he has released multiple mixtapes and appeared as a featured artist on dozens of songs — most famously Katy Perry’s hit 2013 song “Dark Horse,” in which Juicy found himself embroiled in the copyright lawsuits surrounding the song, although his rap is not one of the alleged infringements.

“I gave Columbia Records 20+ years of my life,” he wrote in one of Saturday’s tweets, “and they treat me like backwash.”

 

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