Sometimes drastic times call for drastic measures.
To rightfully claim what belonged to The LOX, Jadakiss and his fellow group members took direct action.
During an interview with I Am Athlete, the New York rapper spoke about how the hip-hop group regained their music publishing.
Initially, in 1996, The LOX was signed to Diddy’s Bad Boy Records.
According to Okayplayer, Jadakiss, Styles P., and Sheek Louch requested to be released from their contract in 1999, which was rejected by the founder.
“When we had this situation, we knew that we couldn’t win financially, in litigation, in court. The little bit of pennies we had at that time would’ve been gone after two court dates…The only power we got is the streets,” Jadakiss said during the episode.
Although they knew it was going to be a tough battle ahead, the three joined together to persevere.
“Once we decided to go against [Diddy], he had the power to block us from ever putting a song out ever again,” Jadakiss said. “We didn’t have no leverage — really besides the street. We had mixtapes, we had people behind us who thought we would be great artists in the future…If we gonna do it, let’s do it. But just know, it could go all the way bad.”
Thankfully, The LOX was successful in the end.
Per Okayplayer, the group’s management team, Ruff Ryders, bought them out of their contract for $2 million, as well as royalties from Jadakiss’ first solo LP, “Kiss tha Game Goodbye.”
During his interview with I Am Athlete, Jadakiss gave kudos to Diddy for not playing hardball as much as he could have.
“Shout out to Diddy also because he could’ve played much harder ball than he played,” the rapper said on the podcast.
After getting out of their Bad Boy Records contract, The LOX went on to record their second studio album, “We Are the Streets.”
Shortly after, they went on to pursue their solo endeavors.
