Reason hasn’t held back from expressing his dissatisfaction with Top Dawg Entertainment of late, and he has now parted ways with the imprint.
In a statement shared to his social media profiles on Tuesday (June 18), the California native announced that he will no longer be releasing music through the label.
“THE LAST 7 YEARS HAVE BEEN INCREDIBLE, AND I’VE APPRECIATED ALL THE TIME AND EXPERIENCES THAT HAVE COME WITHIN THAT SPAN OF TIME,” he wrote. “I CANT EVEN PUT INTO WORDS THE SURREAL FEELING I VE HAD OF BEING ABLE TO SHARE MY THOUGHTS, EXPRESSIONS, EMOTIONS, STORIES, AND EXPERIENCES WITH YOU ALL THROUGH THE PLATFORM PROVIDED TO ME BY TOP DAWG ENTERTAINMENT.
“WITH THAT BEING SAID, IT COMES WITH GREAT APPRECIATION AND EXCITEMENT THAT I WANT TO ANNOUNCE MY SPLIT WITH TDE. I WANT TO GIVE A HUGE THANK YOU TO TOP HIMSELF, NOT ONLY FOR GIVING ME A CHANCE TO LIVE OUT MY DREAM BUT ALSO FOR HEARING ME AND UNDERSTANDING MY DECISION TO TRAVEL A DIFFERENT PATH AFTER THE YEARS. THERE’S TRULY NO WORDS FOR THE AMOUNT OF RESPECT I HAVE FOR YOU, AND THAT’LL NEVER CHANGE, NO MATTER WHAT.”
He continued: “I ALSO WANT TO THANK EVERY SINGLE TDE FAN WHO EMBRACED ME AND ALLOWED ME TO SHARE MY MUSIC WITH THEM. THERE’S NO WORLD IN WHICH YOU DON’T MEAN THE ABSOLUTE MOST TO ME. LAST BUT NOT LEAST, A THANK YOU TO ALL THE ARTISTS WHO EMBRACED ME.
“THANK YOU FOR BEING A CONSTANT INSPIRATION AND EAR WHILE TRYING TO NAVIGATE THIS INDUSTRY AND MUSIC. THANK YOU GUYS FOR THE TIME AND A HUGE THANKS TO EVERYBODY FOR THIS EXPERIENCE. EXCITED FOR WHAT COMES NEXT!”
Reason’s issues with TDE have been brewing for quite some time now, as he recently claimed that no one from the label showed up to his album listening party last year.
“I had a release party, and nobody showed up from the label,” he said on the Rory & Mal podcast soon after Porches was released. “Ray Vaughn showed up — shout out to Ray Vaughn. I took it as, y’know, maybe n-ggas giving me some space.”
Earlier that month, the Carson rapper got into an argument with the imprint’s co-president Moosa during an interview with BACKONFIGG, where he aired out his frustrations with the rollout of the aforementioned album.
“We had certain features lined up that could’ve gone through,” he vented. “We had the budget, we had the feature[s] lined up — takes too long to get pushed through, the 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.”
