Rich The Kid has said that he was once signed to Top Dawg Entertainment, but the deal was never made public.
In an interview with Bootleg Kev, the Atlanta-raised rapper acknowledged that his signing to TDE — which was rumored to have happened in 2017 shortly after Rich released “New Freezer” with Kendrick Lamar — was only a brief overlap in between record deals.
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“I did sign to Interscope through TDE,” Rich revealed. “I met Kendrick and I was recording my album in one room, Kendrick was recording his album in one room and SZA was recording her album in one room…At the time, I didn’t even know he was recording. I just came and did my shit and went out the door.”
He continued: “Then one day, they came in there and was like, ‘Yo, Kendrick wants to hear some new records.’ And then I played him ‘New Freezer’ and he was like, ‘Yeah, I need that.’ I was waiting for the verse for like a month ’cause he was on the road doing shows and shit.”
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RTK went on to say that “New Freezer” pretty much brought him into TDE’s inner circle, but at the time he was signed to 300 Entertainment and Quality Control, so he was forced to buy his way out of both contracts.
“It’s hard to get a lot of money from a label when you ain’t have no streams, so I had to pay QC $500,000 and had to give 300 $300,000, plus I had to get paid myself,” Rich explained, adding that to get the money together he called every label he knew before one finally fronted him the capital needed to pay his way out.
Rumors of Rich The Kid’s TDE signing first surfaced in 2018 when eagle-eyed fans noticed that the West Coast label was listed in the credits for the rapper’s 2018 track “Leave Me.”
However, when Bootleg Kev asked Rich back in 2017 about his affiliation with the label, he denied being signed to Top Dawg, but said “it’s family, though.”
Last November, Rich The Kid departed his previous label Republic Records and claimed to have inked a very lucrative deal with RCA Records to the tune of eight figures.
The “Plug Walk” hitmaker told TMZ during a New York excursion that the deal was worth a whopping $40 million, but admitted he was mostly excited to start a new chapter of his career.
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“Having a good solid team,” Rich said. “It’s not about the money. Sometimes the money is not the most important thing. The best label, RCA.”
Rich The Kid most recently dropped off his new single “Do You Love Me?” which features Lil Tjay. It’s slated to appear on his forthcoming album, tentatively titled Life’s a Gamble.
