Atlantic Records

**Atlantic Records** is an American record label founded in October 1947 and headquarted in New York City. Lupe Fiasco was signed to the label from 2005-2015 with recommendation from Jay-Z, and maintained what sources referred to as a "tulumous" and "contentious" relationship.

Difficulties brought to light was asking his music executive Lyor Cohen for rights to his master recordings in exchange for a 360 deal. There were also threats of no promotion or delay in his album releases.

Fiasco said to *MTV* back in 2010, "The truth of the matter is that I'm at the mercy of powers that be... who don't know if they want to be a record company or a management company or a production company."

## Background

In an interview, Fiasco's buisness partner Charles "Chilly" Patton explained that Jay-Z claimed to be the next president of Atlantic Records and invited him and Fiasco to join the roster. Both signed with the advance from the label, though Jay-Z was offered a position at Def Jam Records and accepted their offer instead.

In a 2014 interview, Fiasco said about his contract, "Bad, to keep it a thousand. I can't wait to get off. Even with that said, I'm coming with the biggest records of my career over the next two albums just to set myself up for that post-Atlantic Records career. I've had a very interesting run for various reasons. I don't even think about it anymore. I just go ahead."

A notable moment was with the delayal of his *Lasers* album due to his refusal to sign a 360 deal, which Fiasco explained, "entails that they get 25% of any ancillary properties that [comes] from [my] music." This led to Fiasco Friday, where fans protested outside of the label's office and demanded for a release date. Eventually the record label gave them the date. Concerning the set back with *Tetsuo & Youth*, Fiasco revealed, "Atlantic Records won't release the album until they get a 'pop' single. [S]o putting together a mini-project while they find one for me. It's called 'Lost in the Atlantic Ocean' with a bunch of my friends to stay active and happy..." An incident that arose out of this was the hackivist group, Anonymous, who tweeted on October 15, 2014, "@AtlanticRecords: You have 24 hours to present a statement announcing the immediate release of [Tetsuo & Youth]. If you do not comply, we will launch a direct attack against your website, your associates, and your executives ... Blatantly censoring @LupeFiasco is inexcusable." Less than 24 hours later, the label announced the release date, though it was unknown if the group was the reason behind this.

He recalled over a livestream that they slowed down the promotion of his record "Kick, Push" to gain controlling portions by buying the rights to the song it was sampled from. He elaborated, "They flew down to the Philippines to find the woman who we sampled the record from and bought the entire record from her. They actually own the song 'Kick, Push' is sampled from. That's what they did." Followed by the release of *Tetsuo & Youth* in 2015, he left the label. Despite this, he was "contractually obligated" to release one more project, which was *Drogas Light*. He admitted, "Around *Lasers*, I knew there was going to be some bullshit. So, I was like, you know what? I will never, ever, ever, as long as I'm on this label, give this label my heart. What I truly believe and what I really feel. 'Cause I feel like when you work for somebody, they have to show you some love back; show that they deserve your worth. So, since *Lasers*, I've never really put my all into a project because I feel like Atlantic doesn't deserve it. So I took an L."

In 2022, Fiasco further elaborated that he "was comfortable making pop records. The issue was who controlled those records and what the ownership and splits were. Atlantic would only promote my records if they owned a large portion of them or if I signed a 360 deal." He continued, "The issue was never my ability to make hit or pop records. The issue wasn't even the business per se. My contracts were solid. It's when the label didn't want to abide by the contracts anymore and started throwing shitty little curveballs out of FOMO and greed. All bad after that."

## Discography

* *Lupe Fiasco's Food & Liquor* (2006)
* *Lupe Fiasco's The Cool* (2007)
* *Lasers* (2011)
* *Food & Liquor II: The Great American Rap Album Pt. 1* (2012)
* *Tetsuo & Youth* (2015)

## References

1. ↑ Blake, Cole (August 1, 2022). "Lupe Fiasco Discusses Issues with Atlantic Records". *HotNewHipHop*.
2. ↑ Cowen, Trace (February 11, 2019). "Lupe Fiasco Blasts Atlantic and Lyor Cohen, Calls Music Biz 'Damn Near a Mob Cartel'". *Complex*.
3. ↑ "From The Vault: The Discovery of Lupe Fiasco". *Atlantic Records*. December 14, 2013. Archived 2015.
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Blanco, Alvin (October 7, 2010). "Lupe Fiasco Explains 'Lasers' Delay, Blames Atlantic Records". *MTV*.
5. ↑ Berry, Peter (December 5, 2016). "Jay-Z Is the Reason Lupe Fiasco Signed to Atlantic Records". *XXL*.
6. ↑ "Lupe Fiasco Visits Torae on #TorGuideSXM". *YouTube*. August 19, 2014.
7. ↑ Fleischer, Adam (October 14, 2014). "Lupe Fiasco Is in Another Battle with Atlantic Records". *MTV*.
8. ↑ Michaels, Sean (October 17, 2014). "Hackers claim victory in Lupe Fiasco 'censorship' row". *The Guardian*.
9. ↑ Fu, Eddie (April 7, 2020). "The label allegedly flew to the Philippines to acquire a controlling portion of the song's rights.". *Genius*.
10. ↑ Zisook, Brian (May 5, 2017). "Lupe Fiasco Admits He Made a Crappy Album Because Atlantic Didn't "Deserve" His Best".
11. ↑ Mahadevan, Tara (August 1, 2022). "Lupe Fiasco Speaks on Problems With Former Label Atlantic Records". *Complex*.