Whatever the details of the agreement JT The Bigga Figga made with The Game, it has supplied JT with enough tracks for a follow-up to The Untold Story, The Game’s first album released on Get Low Records. Get Low brings more tracks in late March with West Coast Resurrection.
With XXL dropping a West Coast Resurrection issue in March, it’s unclear whether the title of the album is opportunistic or reflects some crosspromotional activity between Get Low and XXL. Either way, JT’s playing an interesting game of feeding off the excessive promotional power of the major labels. What interests me is his approach to dealing with The Game. Typically, when opportunistic small labels sign up and coming talent that they think could be big, they lock them in with extremely restrictive contracts. While the problems with potentially unfair contracts are often discussed, some artists get locked into contracts by labels that then don’t promote them and don’t allow them to build a career elsewhere, effectively tying them up for years without producing anything.
JT’s approach in this case is interesting, in that he can freely benefit from The Game’s climb without appearing to undermine The Game’s career. I can’t help but wonder what else led to this approach, but certainly this allows JT to position himself in a unique artist-friendly role:
“I want to be known as the guy that you can come to when you want to get your jumpstart,” JT says. “If you’re dope, let’s throw it out there and see what we can do.”
