Interscope Owed 50 Cent $23 Million In Back Pay
Fifty Cent's Animal Ambition press tour continues to roll on and over the weekend, Fif went north of the border for an appearance on Canada's Business News Network. During the interview, Fifty spoke more on the business side of his career rather than his music and gave details on his $23 million buyout from Interscope Records.
"I've spent a long time period on hiatus," said 50. "I was in the back portion in the music business. I was in the business portion of music for four years. Because it was my fifth and final album requirement for Interscope, we was in a position where we would have to do audits and go through the books and everything...My album, Get Rich or Die Trying is the largest debuting hip-hop album and the way we sold ringtones at that point is exactly how we sell the single [today]. So, the language in the contracts spoke to the same light and the way I would be paid off of a ringtone...If that's the way I was to be paid off the singles would mean that they owed me like another $23 million. So we went through the process and it took--for four years actually. It took a while for us to get through it."
The Queens MC also highlighted the fact that his audio company, SMS Audio, was a direct competitor to Beats Audio caused friction within the label and hurt the release of his music for the past four years.
"I was paid," he continued. "We resumed back to making music. Then, what I was getting out of the response to the actual music made me feel like I lost that camaraderie we had at one point. Not in touch with the audience, but within the actual system itself because Interscope's priorities shifted. They created Beats Audio, and Beats was the priority over there and I had already committed to my own company, SMS Audio. It was like I'm the competing company while actually being signed to the company as an artist. I couldn't get the leverage I needed to properly launch the project. I went another route..."
Animal Ambition is slated for a June 3 release.
More From XXL
