Moosa Tiffith

Reason Clarified His And Moosa’s On-Air Argument: ‘It Definitely Shouldn’t Have Been In Public’

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Two weeks after the release of his new album, Porches, Reason appeared on The Breakfast Club to clarify one of the high-profile snafus that happened during the album’s rollout. A few days before the album’s release, Reason appeared on a livestream of the BACKONFIGG podcast, where he seemingly vented his frustrations about his label, TDE, prompting the label’s president, Moosa Tiffith, to call on and get into a heated back-and-forth with his artist.

In the course of the discussion, Moosa revealed that Reason was initially not a priority for his predecessor Dave Free, and joked that even the hosts on the podcast didn’t know any Reason songs. And while fans took the discourse as evidence of a rift between the artist and business partner, during his Breakfast Club interview, Reason asserted that while “it definitely shouldn’t” have happened in public, the discussion was just one of many and there’s no bad blood between them.

Asked if there was a problem between him and TDE, Reason said, “That entire situation, that was a conversation that me and Moo have had behind closed doors a lot…. it definitely shouldn’t have been out in the public. It’s a lot of misconceptions about that… Moosa loves this album. He helped me pick some of the records… It was just one of those things that got so nasty and ugly publicly that now, everything is ‘A Thing.’”

He elaborated that other comments he’d made accidentally fed into the narrative. For example, he’d said no one from the label came to his release party, but explained that the statement was taken out of context; he had previously had a label-led listening, but the release party was more private for family and friends. He also stood behind his statement about J. Cole and Kendrick Lamar, clarifying that he didn’t think J. Cole would be bigger than his former labelmate, just bigger in general.

He also said he had more than 1,300 songs recorded… and reiterated that he wanted to put more out. You can see the full interview above.

Reason Got Into A Heated Back And Forth With TDE’s President Moosa, Who Clowned The Rapper For His Label Comments

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Artists and their labels have never traditionally gotten along all that great, but sometimes, the struggle between art and commerce boils over, leading to public outbursts and occasionally even legal action. This has especially been the case for indie label Top Dawg Entertainment, courtesy of a tendency to sign ornery, outspoken artists who aren’t afraid to vent their frustrations with the label like SZA or take their time recording new music like Isaiah Rashad.

And while TDE has been pretty patient in the past, leading to some of the more successful releases in recent years like albums from the aforementioned artists and former artist Kendrick Lamar, apparently, even they have limits. Moosa Tiffith, son of the titular Top Dawg and one of the managers at the label, finally reached his during a live interview with Del Amo rapper Reason, calling in during the rapper’s appearance to refute his complaints live.

During Reason’s appearance on the podcast BACKONFIGG, he vented about the rollout for his upcoming album, Porches, saying, “We had certain features lined up that could’ve went through. We had the budget, we had the feature lined up, takes too long to get pushed through, feature price ended up going up or something goes away. Content ideas lined up, not executed. Rollout ideas lined up, not executed.” Reason specifically pointed to an attempt to secure a feature from EST Gee, but before it could be finalized, the Louisville rapper had released a song with Future, increasing his popularity and driving up the feature price.

When Moosa called in, though, things got heated as the manager asserted that former co-president, Dave Free, didn’t even want to sign Reason, who he called a “substitute teacher.” He also challenged the show’s hosts to name 10 Reason songs, and mocked the rapper when they couldn’t. “Dave never wanted us to sign Reason,” Moosa declared. “He called him a substitute teacher. Dot only said Reason had talent, but it’s gon’ take more than just talent in this game right now and everybody know that.”

You can check out the full episode above and see the argument in question below.