In the lead-up to the release of his album Porches, rapper Reason found himself in a public dispute with his record label, Top Dawg Entertainment (TDE). The tension came to a head during an episode of T-Rell‘s “BACKONFIGG” on Monday night (August 7), where Reason aired his frustrations regarding the rollout of his upcoming album.

Seated alongside TDE DJ MackWop, Reason didn’t hold back as he accused TDE of mishandling his album rollout and bungling features from prominent artists like Latto and EST Gee. The rapper, who signed with TDE in 2018, expressed his disappointment over various aspects of the rollout process.

“We had certain features lined up that could’ve gone through,” Reason lamented. “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.”

He elaborated on the missed opportunities: “It was a few different things. I had Latto lined up for something, not executed. I had EST Gee lined up, not executed. Like, us not pushing through. Features lined up, we got a price set, video and verse for the love, takes too long.”

Reason also provided a specific example involving EST Gee: “I’ll speak on the EST Gee shit specifically — took too long to get through to EST Gee and his people and be like, ‘Yo, this is what we wanna do.’ By the time we ended up connecting with him and reaching out, he dropped a record with Future and the record went crazy. Now, the feature is $25,000 more than what it already was.”

The situation took a turn when TDE co-president Anthony “Moosa” Tiffith Jr., the son of label founder Anthony “Top Dawg” Tiffith Sr., called into the stream to address Reason’s grievances. Moosa began by challenging T-Rell and MackWop to name 10 of Reason’s songs, a task they struggled to complete. He then shared insights into TDE’s initial reservations about signing Reason, stating that former co-president Dave Free had referred to him as a “substitute teacher.”

“Aye, Dave, Dot [Kendrick Lamar], I love them n-ggas. Dave never wanted us to sign Reason. He called him a substitute teacher,” Moosa remarked candidly. He also questioned the potential impact of an EST Gee collaboration on Reason’s career trajectory, highlighting that the rapper has previously worked with artists like ScHoolboy Q.

Moosa’s commentary ignited a back-and-forth between the co-president and Reason. The rapper repeatedly posed the question: “You wanna have a conversation or you wanna go viral, which one you wanna do?”

Set to release on Friday, August 11, Reason’s album Porches features collaborations with Doechii, SiR, Baby Tate, Zacari, Ray Vaughn, and other notable artists with production handled by Boi-1da, Vinylz and more.

I appreciate ppl that’s reached out to me. Trust I’m as good as I can be. We’ll have a real convo at some point about what happened, just trust that wasn’t a “rollout move” lol that actually happened! All positive energy as of now moving forward tho! Porches Friday! Love y’all!

— REASON TDE (@reasonTDE) August 8, 2023