On the latest episode of Joe and Jada, rappers Fat Joe and Jadakiss spoke about rappers living paycheck to paycheck and how record labels “ripped off” artists.
Around the 31-minute point of the podcast, as seen above, Joe questioned why Tupac’s record label never shelled out the money to bail him out of jail despite him being the most popular rapper in the world at the time. “If you think a record label’s coming to bail you… I know they support you at the beginning, or whatever,” said Joe. “Lil Durk is facing life, right? God bless him if he’s thinking the record label will [help him out].”
Joe argued that, at the time, Tupac didn’t have the necessary funds to be bailed out without the help of Suge Knight, who later signed him to Death Row Records. “He didn’t have the money to bail himself out,” he said. “Sometimes, we living day by day.” He suggested that even the biggest artists are often living paycheck to paycheck, because they’re spending more because of their success.
“You gotta fucking work,” said Jada. “I just seen Rod Stewart about to do something.”
Joe asked if artists working while they’re still in their 80s is because they love it, or if they need to pay the bills. “These bills just keep coming,” said Joe. “I don’t care how much money we make, it’s almost like shampoo. The shit just slip through your fingers. I’m not safe! … I am not safe with no amount of money. You don’t know how many times I made a million dollars and that shit was gone in like a month or two.”
He said that regardless of how much rappers are making, there will always be more bills to pay. “How the fuck is it, with all of this streaming and all that… It’s definitely more money,” said Jada, questioning how artists appear to make less money in the streaming era. “The way the streaming works is they actually pay you less,” said Joe, recalling how he used to go out and buy physical releases.
“The numbers don’t matter,” said Jada. “1,500 streams is one spin or one record sale or something. Whoever the fuck made that up, they hate us!” Joe agreed, “The whole system been a scam from the beginning. … The math never added up with the record labels.” He also reflected on how the music industry has changed so that the music is a stepping stone now, with artists having to become entrepreneurs and make money in other ways.
“We encouraging you to be an entrepreneur,” said Joe. “You see what we do. You see how we walk. And just try to have an easier life than us, because we worked really really hard to get to this point right now. This ain’t for everybody.”
Check out the full episode of the podcast above.
