Joell Ortiz Talks Album Leak, Splitting With E1 [VIDEO]

Slaughterhouse’s Joell Ortiz stopped by the XXL offices yesterday (December 1) for our weekly live UStream show, Spotlight, where he spoke about his situation with his former record label, E1 Entertainment and premature album leak.

The Brooklyn Bomber’s sophomore disc, Free Agent, was recently pushed back to February, however, no one sent the news to amazon.com. The online retailer still released digital copies of the album on its original release date of November 30, giving many fans an early glimpse of what to expect, before being forced to take it down.

Ortiz spoke candidly with XXL about the issue, and revealed that now he is no longer signed with E1. “I’m moving forward,” he said. “I’m in a different phase of career. I’m no longer on E1 as an artist, to be honest with you. I’m doing new music [and] I been handed in that album.” [Watch below]

While Ortiz is no longer singed to the label, it doesn’t mean he’s looking for another record deal. “I’m just looking for a partner right now, not even a label deal,” he explained; “someone that believes in my music. Yesterday’s thing is yesterday’s thing.”

While Free Agent has leaked Ortiz remains positive. “My fans are genuine fans, they will follow Slaughterhouse wherever we go,” he said about the situation. “So, as far as the album, that will not effect what we do in the future… I don’t stop recording. This is what I do for a living. I could put another album out again tomorrow if I wanted to.”

Free Agent is set to hit stores on February 22, 2011. Watch our entire Spotlight interview with Joell Ortiz here.–Nicole LoPresti with reporting by Jesse Gissen

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