Lil Wayne manager Cortez Bryant is shedding some light on the reason why Birdman and Cash Money shelved Lil Wayne album Tha Carter V.
During an interview with Rap Radar, Bryant revealed that the album has been ready since 2014 and they were planning to release it for free but Birdman and other major label execs put the breaks on it. He also detailed that Lil Wayne was not paid his advances for the first single “Believe Me” off the album which was released two years ago. “Even then, Wayne was on some ‘I don’t like it but hey, we’re family’,” he said.
Cortez Bryant said that he negotiated a deal with Google that would released the album as a free download around the time when music streaming was relatively new to the market. “This was before streaming really hit,” Cortez added. “We had a deal cut with Google where they were going to back the album and we were really gonna be able to give Carter V away for free, streaming. The deal was lucrative, you know what I’m saying? But when I presented it to Slim and Baby, they didn’t get it.”
“They didn’t get streaming. They went to the powers that be, the label was against it because they hadn’t put their hands in the pockets yet, they had no control over it, and they basically told me we can’t put the album out. And when I had to tell Wayne that, he was like ‘What?’ He was like, ‘You can’t stop me, you can’t hold me back, my fans don’t deserve this and I’m about to air it out.’”
Lil Wayne did aired things out on Twitter telling his fans back in December 2014 that Birdman and Cash Money are holding the album hostage and he want the label to release him from his contract.
