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

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.