Kanye West has responded to reports that Jay-Z sold the rapper’s masters to Def Jam in a bid to secure the rights to his own recordings.
Earlier this week (September 15), West began sharing scans of his record label contracts. Some of the pages he shared suggest that, while the star owns some of his masters, the rights for his first six albums were previously held by Jay-Z.
West released his first six records on Roc-A-Fella, the label owned by Jay-Z. However, when Def Jam bought the label in 2004, the label owner and rapper reportedly sold the rights to records including ‘College Dropout’ and ‘Late Registration’ in a deal that would secure his own masters.
Ye has now responded to the reports on Twitter, sharing a screenshot detailing the issue. “Don’t let the system pit us against each other,” he wrote. “JAY IS MY BROTHER … I have eternal love for all artist that have been through and are still trapped [in] this crooked system.
“Jay still doesn’t get his own masters back for ten years. I will see to it that we all get our masters.”
When he began sharing details of his contracts on Twitter, West said he would not release any new music until he is free from his ties to Sony and Universal. He also labelled himself “the new Moses” and said the “music industry and the NBA are modern-day slave ships”.
A day later (September 16), he alleged that Prince and Michael Jackson were “killed” by the music and media industries. He also tweeted a video clip that appeared to show him urinating on a Grammy award in a toilet bowl, alongside the caption: “Trust me … I WON’T STOP.”
