Megan Thee Stallion’s rallying cry for fans to fight for her freedom from her record label sparked a forceful response. When the stipulations of her imbalanced recording contract were revealed in her lawsuit against the label, 1501 Certified Entertainment, Meg’s Hotties were even more convinced that intervention was required. Then, the CEO of 1501, Carl Crawford, did an interview with Billboard and denied all of the Houston rapper’s accusations. We are now left in the middle of a “he said, she said” situation, where the claims being made by both parties are equally wild and damning. 

Crawford is tracing the root of this mess to Meg’s desire to get out of her deal with 1501 in favor of signing with Roc Nation. While Meg told the masses that her label was blocking her from releasing new music because she had requested to renegotiate her contract, Crawford insists that her expectations weren’t that simple. “Their real plan was to get you out of my contract so they can sign you to Roc Nation,” Crawford told Billboard, while directly addressing Meg. “Then, she’s getting $100,000 a show and she don’t want to pay up. That’s what the issue was about. She signed with Roc Nation in August and decided she didn’t wanna pay me no more.”

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Crawford is convinced that Meg stopped paying him his contractually-obligated share of her income as a “strong-arm tactic” to get her released to the Roc. However, this isn’t the only tactic Crawford says she’s using to win this battle. “Ok, tell everybody your definition of negotiating. Your definition is, ‘OK. I’m going to send Suge Knight’s old lawyers to come in, and it’s a stick-up…’ Of course, I’m like, ‘This isn’t a negotiation. This is a robbery.'”

In the interview, Crawford repeatedly mentioned the forcefulness of Meg’s lawyers, describing his encounter with them as a “stick-up” and suggesting they “want to take [him] out.” He also alleged, “they’re threatening me, my kids, everybody”, but the “they” he was referring to in this context was vague. Her legal team’s desired outcome from this intimidation is that Crawford will agree to reduce her four-album deal to just one, so she can be freed ASAP. Crawford is not too willing to cooperate since Meg has supposedly been stiffing him of his fees and also because her own mother and her current manager, T. Farris, were the ones responsible for writing up her contract. Therefore, he doesn’t see anything unfair about her arrangement. 

We’ll have to wait and see how this unfolds, but Meg has obtained a temporary restraining order from 1501 that allows her to drop her debut album Suga this Friday!