Jay-Z Talks About Leaving Def Jam

Posted by Mitch Michaels on 07.02.2009

"I felt under-utilized"...

Jay-Z's Blueprint 3 will now be released via Atlantic Records. His Roc Nation label, however, is still tied to Sony Music. Prior to making the deal, both Sony and Warner Music Group (parent company of Atlantic) were involved in a bidding war for both assets.

"Roc Nation — we're experts in marketing and making records. But we do distribution deals," Jay-Z said. "On [Blueprint 3], we're working directly with the Atlantic staff… For the rest of the Roc Nation artists, we did a distribution deal with Sony."

Warner Music's CEO is Jigga's old Def Jam associate Lyon Cohen, who appears in the new "D.O.A." video. Roc Nation artist Amanda Ghost runs Sony's Epic impriont, while Jay-Z's wife Beyonce is signed to Sony's Columbia Records.

Jay-Z bought out his Def Jam contract for $5 million recently, partly because of the way the label worked its distribution deals. He said, "You have to figure, this is like four years ago, and to them it was just like, ‘Are you crazy? No! Make a song!'. 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."

Credit: RollingStone.com