So, about Pusha T and Clipse getting let out of their deal, it wasn’t as easy as previously revealed.
In case you missed it, Pusha T revealed that the album could have arrived last summer, but Def Jam was apprehensive about dropping the album with a Kendrick Lamar feature.
Speaking with GQ‘s Frazier Thorpe, Pusha T revealed that he and Malice were at a draw with Def Jam, explaining that the verse arrived amid Lamar’s beef with Drake. Def Jam and Universal Music Group (UMG) weren’t in on Drake’s biggest enemies appearing on a song together, despite neither taking a shot at The Boy.
Pusha T revealed in the interview that he thought their views were “stupid.”
“They wanted me to ask Kendrick to censor his verse, which of course I was never doing,” Pusha T revealed. “And then they wanted me to take the record off. And so, after a month of not doing it, Steve Gawley, the lawyer over there was like, ‘We’ll just drop the Clipse.’ But that can’t work because I’m still there [solo]. But [if] you let us all go… ”
As a result, Def Jam dropped Clipse and also released King Push from his solo deal. The duo landed at JAY-Z’s Roc Nation.
Doubling back on the story is Pusha’s longtime manager, Steven Victor, who revealed it took an “insane amount of money” for Pusha T and Malice to exit their Def Jam agreement. That money was in the seven figures.
“If you’re an artist, your whole life is to create art and put it out,” Victor said to Billboard. “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.”
To avoid compromising artistic integrity, Victor suggested they release the single elsewhere and handle licensing through Def Jam. Def Jam replied, “How about you just find somewhere else to put out Clipse? Just pay something to us and put it out somewhere else.”
Now, from this writer’s perspective, that seemed like a tongue-in-cheek “bow down to our demand” message from the label. And they forgot one of the rappers they were talking about made “Call My Bluff.” Victor recalls, 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.'”
Victor revealed the bill was paid. “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.” He also revealed Pusha had something around three albums left on the deal. Once they initiated the buyout, Victor got JAY-Z on the line to make way to Roc Nation.
Victor added, “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.”
And just like that, Let God Sort Them Out drops on July 11.