Before winning Best New Artist at three separate awards shows over the last year, Yung Bleu was a hungry young artist honing his craft under the tutelage of Boosie Badazz.
The Alabama native signed to Boosie’s Bad Azz Music Syndicate in 2016 and released a string of projects on the label, but departed in 2019 after Boosie gave him the opportunity to sign elsewhere and make more money. (Bleu signed a distribution deal with EMPIRE for his Vandross Music Group label in 2020.)
While the two rappers remain on good terms, the Moon Boy star’s departure from Bad Azz Music Syndicate has created a contractual dispute that Boosie wants to settle in court. The Baton Rouge legend is accusing the people around Bleu of squeezing him out of a deal, but believes he’ll emerge victorious and receive the compensation he’s due.
“I gotta take everybody to court,” he said in the latest segment of his VladTV interview. “Yung Bleu ain’t really in it; it’s just the people who was behind it. They did some messed up business, and it’s gonna come back to haunt everybody. I was just fucked over, bro. I don’t really blame Bleu, but I got ’em. This shit is crazy.”
He added, “You gotta understand, you got so many people trying to come in … These other labels came in and tried to X me out, and this man signed to me … Shit just get crazy when you get to making money, man … I feel like we gonna get through it. I don’t want his money; I want him to have all the money! I want they money!”
Yung Bleu opened up about his label situation with Boosie Badazz during an interview with HipHopDX in 2020, revealing he gave Boosie a percentage of the profits from the albums that he owed Bad Azz Music Syndicate even after he allowed him to leave the label.
“I came to Boosie and told him I still wanted to rock with the brand but not signed to Columbia no more,” he explained. “I just wanted to rock independently, without a major label and Boosie was cool with it. He just wanted me to give him his profit and participation on the albums that I had left with him and I did.
“I was going to do that either way, whether we had a contract or not, because I had albums still left with him and he ain’t have to let me go. He ain’t have to let me go free and go sign a deal, you feel me? But he did. I respect the man and we got a different type of relationship. I’m still Bad Azz, though. I’m Bad Azz for life.”
Bleu went one step further last February when he gifted his mentor and former label boss $100,000 in cash as a way to (literally) repay his faith in him.
“Boosie supported me from the jump,” Bleu told The Undefeated. “So it was a gesture to express my appreciation for believing in me at a time when no one else did. Our relationship is more than business, it’s family. Boosie is really my big bro and he’s been supportive of all the moves I’ve made to build my career.”