Reason Gets Into Heated Argument With TDE President: ‘Dave [Free] Never Wanted To Sign [You]’

Reason and Top Dawg Entertainment appear to be at odds after the Carson rapper got into an argument with the label’s co-president Moosa during an interview.

Reason appeared on an episode of BACKONFIGG on Monday (August 7), where he aired out his frustrations with the rollout for his upcoming album Porches.

With TDE DJ MackWop next to him, Reason accused the powerhouse West Coast label of failing to execute various plans that would drum up excitement for its release and fumbling big-name features from Latto and EST Gee.

“We had certain features lined up that could’ve went through,” he vented. “We had the budget, we had the feature lined up, takes too long to get pushed through, feature price ended up going up or something goes away. Content ideas lined up, not executed. Rollout ideas lined up, not executed.

“It was a few different things. I had Latto lined up for something, not executed. I had EST Gee lined up, not executed. Like, us not pushing through. Features lined up, we got a price set, video and verse for the love, takes too long.”

He added: “I’ll speak on the EST Gee shit specifically — took too long to get through to EST Gee and his people and be like, ‘Yo, this is what we wanna do.’ By the time we ended up connecting with him and reaching out, he dropped a record with Future and the record went crazy. Now, the feature is $25,000 more than what it already was.”

TDE co-president Anthony “Moosa” Tiffith Jr. — the son of label founder Anthony “Top Dawg” Tiffith Sr. — later called into the stream to address Reason’s gripes directly.

With the New Beginnings rapper sat next to them, the executive started off by asking host T-Rell and MackWop to name 10 of his songs, but they couldn’t answer.

Moosa then claimed TDE’s former co-president, Dave Free, didn’t even want to sign Reason in the first place and referred to him as a “substitute teacher.”

“Aye, Dave, Dot [Kendrick Lamar], I love them n-ggas. Dave never wanted us to sign Reason. He called him a substitute teacher. Dot only said Reason had talent, but it’s gon’ take more than just talent in this game right now and everybody know that.”

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Moosa also questioned how a collaboration with EST Gee would transform Reason’s fortunes, noting that he’s already worked with the likes of ScHoolboy Q in the past.

“Even when I hear n-ggas saying features and everything,” he said. “Oh yeah, you could’ve got an EST Gee feature but what does that do for Reason? Like, what’s that gon’ do for Reason? Even when you say you can’t get in contact with SZA and all that. You done had features from everybody, including Q. I’m just trying to understand it, man.”

Reason refused to back down and replied: “You wanna have a conversation or you wanna go viral, which one you wanna do?”

Moosa also took issue with Reason “blaming” TDE for his lack of success, to which the rapper countered by claiming the label hasn’t “allowed” him to drop music on a consistent enough basis, limiting his progression as an artist.

Reason officially signed to TDE in August 2018 after previously appearing on the label’s Black Panther soundtrack on the song “Seasons.”

His upcoming album, Porches, is due out on Friday (August 11) with features from Doechii, SiR, Baby Tate, Zacari, Ray Vaughn and others.

The 17-track project is set to include recent singles “At It Again” and “You Betta (Jesus Take the Wheel).”