Reason, a member of the sprawling Top Dawg Entertainment operation, is prepping for the release of his upcoming album Porches this Friday (August 11). The Carson, Calif. rapper aired out some grievances with TDE, getting into a heated discussion with label co-president Anthony “Mossa” Tiffith Jr. over features that didn’t happen.
Reason was a guest on the BACKONFIGG podcast with hosts T-Rell and Smac. During the chat, the artist born Robert Gill Jr. had plenty to say about the practices of TDE as a label, explaining that features from Latto and EST GEE were lined up but lost due to time.
“We had certain features lined up that could’ve went through,” Reason said. “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.”
He went on to explain that Latto was all but set to go as well as EST GEE but TDE execs held up the process.
“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,” Reason added.
The EST GEE feature in particular jumped in price by $25,000, which apparently would’ve been a huge hit to the album’s marketing budget.
During the interview, Moosa called into the podcast to challenge some of the points made by his artist. Moosa explained that much of what TDE does is a process and kept pointing to the “motion” that TDE artists Ray Vaughn and Doechii have managed to garner as far as fan interest goes.
Moosa then challenged the co-hosts, self-proclaimed fans of their guest, to name 10 Reason songs, which they both failed to do. Also in the call, Moosa explained that former TDE exec Dave Free didn’t want to sign Reason, citing that the rapper gave off, “substitute teacher” vibes.
Reason took to X (formerly known as Twitter) to explain that he’s very much releasing his album on TDE and seemingly wants to remain on the label.
“I appreciate ppl that’s reached out to me. Trust I’m as good as I can be. We’ll have a real convo at some point about what happened, just trust that wasn’t a “rollout move” lol that actually happened! All positive energy as of now moving forward tho! Porches Friday! Love y’all!” he tweeted.
Check the full BACKONFIGG podcast episode with Reason below. Hop to the 1:24:00-minute mark to see the moment in question.
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