"I've seen it happen often over the last few years. Anything to save a buck for these labels," said E. Dan, one third of the production trio ID Labs.
On Tuesday, Atlantic Records came under fire after frequent Wiz Khalifa producer E. Dan -- who makes up a third of the production trio ID Labs -- claimed in an interview with BeatStars that the label underpays producers by retitling rappers' albums as “mixtapes,” “street albums,” or “compilation albums.”
After providing a helping hand on Khalifa's 2016 project Khalifa, E. Dan explained how the label allegedly duped the producers into being paid less than what they were accustomed to receiving. "The Khalifa album, I don't know what they called it, a 'street album?' They came up with some really clever name that essentially meant, 'Everyone involved, you're going to get paid half what you normally do.' I've seen it happen often over the last few years. Anything to save a buck for these labels," he said.
E. Dan's interview sparked conversations on Twitter with Sonny Digital and J.U.S.T.I.C.E. League voicing their opinions regarding the matter. "If you gonna call out Atlantic then you might as well call out all the labels because they all doing the same thing. Shit cash money was dropping actual albums and wasnt even paying the producers. You can’t just single out one party when all other parties doing the same," tweeted Digital.