Terror Squad leader Fat Joe has justified his decision to take an independent route for his upcoming Dark Side album by signing a deal with E1 Music.
According to Joe, E1[formerly known as Koch Records] offered him the opportunity to maintain ownership of his records.
"I'm just trying to go hard. I need the right team," Joe said in an interview. "The right promotion is right for me. I ain't have no team to really promote my stuff. It was important for me. I had a couple of offers on the table, but I went with who I know really knows how to roll up their sleeves and work and really get it done...It was a matter of getting the right deal structured. With me, it's all about owning my masters. If I don't have ownership of my music, I don't really wanna do it. A lot of labels ain't comfortable giving people the ownership of their masters. Basically, I wanted my cake and eat it too. I wanted to own my masters, plus I wanted the illest team that works radio and works video harder than anybody...And I got it."
Fat Joe rival Tony Yayo recently explained why he would "never" sign a contract with E1.
"Would I consider signing with Koch? No," he revealed in an interview. "Because I know 50 would structure a better deal than Koch would give me. So I would just stay over here, you know, G-Unit's a good label. I mean, we got our own people that work for us, so I feel like even on the T.O.S. (Terminate On Site) album, I felt like we was independent on that album, like Interscope didn't give us the push that we need like iTunes and other places."
Joe confirmed the move to E1 via press release earlier this week.
"It's been a long time coming," he stated. "I have a long history with Alan Grunblatt and everyone at E1. Although it's a small label, they have the best marketing and promotion staff in the hip-hop game and I'm looking forward to working with them on my new album, 'The Dark Side.'"
Last month, the rapper said artists like Trey Songz, R. Kelly and Young Jeezy will be featured on the album.
"The dude Scoop DeVille, the guy who produced the Snoop Dogg ['I Wanna Rock'] joint," Joe said referring to his "Slow Down" single. "We coming with that album, The Dark Side this summer. Early June, whatever the case may be. The album is crazy -- I got this crazy joint with me and Trey Songz and we got me and [R. Kelly] after that. They hard, they hard. Basically, I don't want to say what they are on the radio but they hustler anthems...we gotta a couple more announcements to make, you gonna see the movie unfold...We're making probably the biggest move you can make in hip-hop. It's gonna be splashing news in the next two weeks...It's a movie...[Young] Jeezy's my man. I played him ['Slow Down'], it was done, hook and everything. And he was like, 'I gotta get on that thing, Crack.''
Fat Joe's The Dark Side drops Tuesday, June 29th.
Listen to Fat Joe & Young Jeezy's "Ha Ha" down below:
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