After three years of frustration with former label E1 Records (formerly Koch), Joell Ortiz is finally free from their grasp. In March, Ortiz complained about the album delays and E1 preventing him from signing other deals, essentially halting his career.
“Little known fact-E1 also jamming me up from doing a major, major deal as part of Slaughterhouse. so they aint getting FREEAGENT. E1 is f*cking c*ckblocking us from doing something monumental for our fans and our careers. I dont give a f*ck who gets mad.”
Unlike his previous statement earlier this year, E1 confirmed that his long awaited sophomore LP, aptly titled Free Agent, will still be releasing on the label on November 30th, though he is free to sign to other labels.
This reignites the much talked about deal with Shady Records that Slaughterhouse (consisting of Joell Ortiz, Royce da 5’9″, Joe Budden and Crooked I) was supposedly cooking up for a few months now as apparently it may have been E1 who prevented this deal from happening.
What’s interesting to note is that three of the four Slaughterhouse members were already affiliated with that camp at some point or another and had issues. Joell Ortiz was once signed to Dr. Dre’s Aftermath label and couldn’t secure an album release, Crooked I was ghostwriting for Dre at one point of The Detox development and Royce had his highly public falling out with Eminem and D12. Though with the exception of Royce, none had direct involvement with Shady Records, it’ll be interesting to see whether they’ll fare better as a group.