J. Cole says he’s "grateful" for the experience of paying Jay-Z to get his masters, rapping in a new snippet that "business is business."
The snippet in question is tucked in around the six-minute mark in the latest volume of the two-time Grammy winner’s Might Delete Later video series. In the clip, Cole points to his success as a Roc Nation artist and reflects on having "paid dues" earlier in his career, like so:
Y'all ask Jigga, how much did the kid gross for that label?
Paid dues, had to pay dude for my masters, but I'm grateful
Shit, business is business
Also in the latest video update from Cole, who recently told fans he's "at the tail end" of working on a new album, he briefly discusses initially signing with Jay. Per Cole, Jay told him they would not be releasing a project under that deal until he "got some fucking hits." As Cole recalled, this challenge later led to him becoming "super-powerful" as an artist. See more above.
Cole signed with Roc Nation in 2009. In an interview with Damien Scott for Complex that year, Cole detailed his initial meeting with Jay for which he was "nervous as shit." A mere three weeks after that meeting, Cole said at the time, he received official word that Jay wanted to make a deal with him.
Meanwhile, the topic of master recordings, though long considered a crucial part of the larger debate surrounding record label practices, has taken on even greater relevance in recent years. This is thanks, in large part, to Taylor Swift's much-discussed strategy of re-recording prior albums as a "fuck you," of sorts, to those who own her masters.
But as far back as the late Prince, many artists have been vocal about what they see as the importance of securing ownership of one’s masters. Prince, for example, is said to have declined to work with other artists who didn’t own their masters.
As for Jay, he opened up last October about his own masters battle, pointing to its difficulty as why he wouldn't consider selling them in the future.
“I want my kids to see my work," Jay told Gayle King at the time. "If they decide to sell it, then it’s up to them."
