Just four days after Diddy’s viral Grammy speech, former Bad Boy Records artist, Ma$e, is questioning the sincerity behind his former boss’ spiel on hip hop culture.
Ma$e, born Mason Durell Betha, took to Instagram as he indulged his followers with a story about how he attempted to buy back his masters from the hip hop mogul.
While Diddy shared a lengthy message alongside Tyler, The Creator, about the Academy’s state of diversity, Betha says change has to come to from within the culture. He continued by saying that Diddy’s refusal to sell Betha his masters for $2 million “is not black excellence at all. When our own race is enslaving us”.
Betha revealed that Diddy had initially purchased his masters for $20,000 – a move that has hurt Betha’s ability to maximise his revenue.
The LOX
Diddy, who has been vocal in recent years about ‘black excellence’ in the industry, may now be having his character questioned by many on the back of Betha’s latest post. And while it is difficult to prove that any of this is true, Diddy has been accused of mistreating artists in the past.
In 2005, tensions began to arise between hip-hop group, The LOX and Diddy after the group expressed their desire to be dropped from the label. The group later began the ‘Free The LOX’ campaign and eventually their wishes were granted. All was not well however.
In November of 2005, members of the group, Jadakiss and Styles P expressed their frustations with Diddy, despite being dropped from the label. According to the artists, Diddy still owned 50% of their publishing, with Jadakiss insinuating he would drop a refrigerator on Diddy’s head.
Diddy did respond to their claims saying that he owned 20% of their publishing and made $400,000 off The Lox. However a legal representative for The Lox provided documents that contradicted Diddy’s statement.
Diddy’s history with The LOX is telling. With Diddy lying about his business ventures with The Lox, Ma$e may actually have some credibility to his accusations. After all, Ma$e has been frustrated about his dealings before with Diddy.
Artists Managing Artists
The music business is shady. That’s a given. Artists have been getting ripped off since the beginning of time. Diddy evokes this same sentiment as well, feeling like the Academy continues to rip off hip hop artists. But if what Ma$e is saying is true, Diddy may be a contributing cause to the machine that is the industry.
“Someone who didn’t know about the industry. [He] took advantage of somebody. Even back then, [20 grand] was chump change compared to what they were selling. It was bullshit money. Now you’re at a point where you’re going to stand on stage and speak this thing, which is dope, cool. But make shit right with the artist you have wrong shit with” – Mal on The Joe Budden Podcast
This isn’t the first time that an artist has opened up about the poor business dealings between themselves and another artist. In 2016, Lil Wayne accused label founder, Birdman, of spending more than $70 million of Wayne’s $100 million advance. While he did eventually settle in 2018 with “well over $10 million”, Wayne’s story shook hip-hop. Birdman brought Wayne into the culture and for a period, he was also the one to lock him out of it.
Wayne’s story wasn’t the first of shady artist dealings and while we can only hope for change, it doesn’t seem like Ma$e will be the last to be fighting back for his masters.
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