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.”
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).”
I’m on the side of TDE on this one. Reason is boring to me. Pretty much anything released from TDE the past few years has been a no go for me, and it’s crazy because a decade ago, everything they dropped was the best out. Didn’t like Kendricks new album at all. Or AbSouls. Or Jay Rocks last one. Or Qs crash talk. Don’t care about Rashad anymore. Don’t listen to Sza. Tde fell off hard IMO. They stopped making legit hiphop and moved to radio. And now, they see the failures of it. Though SZA made it big recently, basically as soon as she got a bunch of plastic surgery and sold out.
100
I still don’t think the way Top Dawg son was speaking is how you handle conflict in label. “Name 10 Reason songs” from the label guy who ‘s job is (more or less directly) to make sure you at least heard of those 10 Reason songs.
Ab-Soul last album “Herbert” is fire. You’re buggin.
@BM you aren’t really wrong, but if people can’t name any songs by the dude, then I think it validates the executives points. I know what you’re saying, it’s his job to help make his artists more popular, not less… but obviously there’s bad blood, with Reason himself starting the negative talking points, and the executive finishing them off with the truth. I can’t name a single Reason song.
I mean regardless of how good or bad Reason is, a label representative shouldn’t talk shit about his artist on air like that, it just looks bad and unprofessional. They should’ve handled it behind closed doors. Reason probably had nothing to gain from going at them publicly too, but he at least seemed to be more reasonable (pun intended) and specific in his criticism, and the other guy went straight for some disrespectful shit.
Let’s be real, homie ain’t got it. I heard the album and it was pretty weak.
That’s the bottom line. Dude isn’t a star, and he can’t accept it. He can make a living in the industry, and he needs to do that and fall back. A million dudes have done this, and he needs to follow suit.
1. The Trex guy on BOF seems like he orchestrated this. Watch the clip in its entirety.
2. Executives at TDE come off as messy and catty. No professionals should ever conduct conversations or take shots at their artist theyre trying to sell a consumer on live air.
3. There was no mention of promotion of any project up until this week. Jay Rock’s & Ab’s roll out was eerily the same.
4. So we’re we supposed to over look the departure of K.Dot and Baby Keem as the next step in their careers or was it because of all the corn ball ish going on at TDE.
@NJKMilk Kendrock departure was planned before GKMC even dropped. As soon as Dre scooped him up and signed him to Aftermath, which Kendrick is still part of. Dre struck a deal to have him exclusively after a few albums for TDE.
no one checkin for this dude
REASON been trash..IDC
Man that’s was rough. What a lack a professionalism especially for a artist on your label you’re spending money on. I think both should’ve handled it offline but the president took it way overboard trying to embarrass the guy on radio.