Two months ago, the internet was crowded with rumors about Jay-Z hitting negotiation room with Sony Music Entertainment. Last week, Jay-Z finally confirmed he indeed has signed a distribution deal with the giant recording company.
“Sony is Roc Nation. That’s where Roc Nation’s going through,” the rapper told Billboard magazine on Friday, June 29.
When asked about the deal he recently secured for his upcoming studio album “Blueprint 3” with Atlantic Records, the Brooklyn-born rapper clarified that it was just a one-off deal. “That’s pretty much just for this specific album. Roc Nation — we’re experts in marketing and making records. But we do distribution deals,” he explained. “On this one, we’re working directly with the Atlantic staff, which is Julie [Greenwald], Lyor [Cohen], Kevin [Liles] and Kyse [Mike Kyser]. For the rest of the Roc Nation artists, we did a distribution deal with Sony.”
Moreover, Billboard reveals that the famous rapper approached Def Jam with the same distribution deal idea four years ago, but was shut down. The rapper also revealed that executives at Island Def Jam Music Group (IDJ) were not fully capitalizing on Jay-Z’s entrepreneurial abilities. “You have to figure, this is like four years ago, and to them it was just like, ‘Are you crazy? No! Make a song!’” he said. “To me it was like, I’ve sold companies for huge amounts of money. I’m an entrepreneur — that’s what I’ve been all my life. I can’t just sit here and make records and not do anything else. Why wouldn’t you want to do this with me? I felt under-utilized.”
Therefore, after his contract with Def Jam almost expired, Beyonce’s husband bought himself out of the contract for a reportedly $5 million price tag. If you think about it, it’s no surprise. Really, Jay-Z is his own brand, his own label. Besides, he had one last album to release: “Blueprint 3″ was slated for a September 11th U.S. release in order to celebrate the 8th anniversary of Blueprint album series’ first installment, “The Blueprint“. Meanwhile, the rapper/mogul is set to head out on a mini-tour next month.
But, the first single “D.O.A. (Death of Auto-Tune)” from his upcoming album which is supposed to be “amazing” according to the album’s producer Kanye West, was released last month with a music video for the track being debuted at 2009 BET Awards on June 28. According to Billboard, the clip featured guest appearances from Lyor Cohen, head of Warner Music Group which houses Atlantic Records, basketball player Lebron James and actor Harvey Keitel.

This entry was posted on Friday, July 3rd, 2009 at 6:56 am and is filed under News.