CyHi The Prynce shook things up when he dropped "Elephant in the Room," a fictional narrative where he shot up the Def Jam offices while kidnapping Kanye West and throwing lyrical daggers at G.O.O.D. Music artists. It's been a bit of a confusing situation since-- we were told that he was released from Def Jam, and thus sort of assumed he was also done with G.O.O.D. Music, but that's not the case.
Following the controversy caused by "Elephant in the Room," CyHi hopped on Twitter and proposed to fans, "What If I told y'all @kanyewest gave me the beat and the concept and I played if for him prior to releasing it??"
Turns out, that's exactly what happened. We hopped on the phone with CyHi for a quick convo to clear up the confusion and find out exactly what's going on with his label situation. As CyHi tells us, he IS released from his Def Jam contract, meaning they will no longer distribute his music, however his G.O.O.D. Music connection is alive and well.
"Personally, I asked for a release from Def Jam, so I did get a release, but it wasn't due to Kanye West it was to due to Def Jam...I'm still connected to G.O.O.D. Music but it's almost like a Travi$ Scott situation-- he's not on the same distributor as G.O.O.D. Music but he's still with G.O.O.D. Music," CyHi explained over the phone.
"It was more so Def Jam not knowing what to do with me-- it was only so much Kanye could do, 'cause he didn't really wanna put himself out there, and Def Jam not do what they supposed to do and he gotta keep putting himself out there for me. So I just felt like, I would rather go to a situation that wants me there as far as distribution, then I'll add Ye and we'll put it all together and make it a successful release."
What was Def Jam's issue? "Here's the thing, I'm from Atlanta, and most Atlanta break themselves, and a lot of times, they're street artists who may have a lot of cache, may I say, or a lot of money from other avenues," CyHi says. "Me, on the other hand, I just do music. So it's a difference when you take a song to a DJ, or you wanna work a radio record, and they ask for a certain amount of money and your label won't give it to you, but then a street dude walking in, just give you $3,500, 'uhhh okay, I'll just play this record.'"
As for "Elephant in the Room," CyHi explains how the record became bigger than he expected. "I thought it'd be a dope like artistic storyline-ish record, but people took the beef thing to another level than what I thought it was gunna be."
"He [Kanye West] was laughing, everybody thought it was creatively dope, Pusha was there...[Kanye] actually gave me the beat and the concept," CyHi said of Kanye's involvement on the record's creation. "He said he wanted to do like a Dre/Em feel, and I just felt like addressing the elephant in the room."
"People don't know the song's like 2-3 years in the making. It was just time for it," CyHi continued.
There's still confusion to be cleared up when it comes to L.I.O.N., so stay tuned.
Tune in for his social media press conference at 8 EST.