During a bidding war of 2004, Roc-a-Fella was among one of the many labels vying for the services of the self-proclaimed “revolutionary” Hip Hop group, dead prez. After Loud Records was dissolved, M-1 and stic.man negotiated a release from Loud’s parent label, Sony, which allowed for the creation of their Pimp the System remix to the single “Hell Yeah.”
“We were meeting with Jay,” M-1 explained in an interview with Mikey T The Movie Star. “And I was able to connect with him and go in the studio. We already had a record on Sony, but we were released and walked away with the record RBG: Revolutionary But Gangsta. So as we were going around and playing people this record that never came out on Sony, Jay-Z heard a song, which he called ‘The Pizza Man Song.’ We ended up recording his feature during the time we had left the record label. Jay also wanted us to entertain the idea of signing a deal with Roc-a-Fella.”
The collaboration was recorded during a two-year period that saw Roc-a-fella expand its roster with the unlikely signings of Ol Dirty Bastard and former Spice Girl Victoria Beckham, among others. In December of 2004, Jay-Z, Damon Dash and Kareem “Biggs” Burke sold their remaining 50 percent stake of Roc-A-Fella Records to Island Def Jam. Jay-Z would later take a position of President at Def Jam, effectively ending the Roc-A-Fella era. And, in an ironic twist, dead prez found themselves in familiar territory.
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“By the end of 2004…towards 2005, Sony Records came back into the picture,” M-1 added. “[Sony] made a better offer than anyone monetarily, and then we ended up signing back to Sony Records. RBG ended up getting put out on Sony at that time, and it wasn’t really well-promoted, because they still didn’t really know how to do it.”
