Thursday, January 19, 2012

20-Year Old Harlem MC Azealia Banks Signs Deal With Universal


20-year old Harlem, New York rapper Azealia Banks has inked a deal with Universal Records. It's the second deal for Banks who signed her first recording contract at age 16 with London based XL Records. That deal quickly soured when she and the company's President, Richard Russell didn't see eye to eye on the direction she wanted to take her career in.

"It was almost the day I signed to XL that they started checking out," she told BBC earlier this month. "There were a good seven to eight months where I was just sending them texts and no-one would say anything or pick up the phone or respond to my emails. Nothing. And it started to ruin me. So I started harassing Richard. Like, 'Dude, I'm going to chop your neck off. Answer my emails!' So I was like, this is not what I worked so hard my entire life to do - to be rejected by some English guy in West Bumblefrickin' nowhere London, telling me I'm amateur or something like that. So I just said, 'Screw you!'"

The split from XL was just what the young mc needed. She went on to drop the video to "212." The song/video got the attention of many in the industry. Banks got co-signs from the likes of Kanye West, Kelly Rowland and Gwyneth Paltrow. West was said to be interested in signing her to his G.O.O.D Music imprint, but in the end she decided Universal was the right place for her.

She announced her signing via Twitter yesterday.

"God dealt me a really f*cked up hand at birth. Half the sh*t I've been through & successfully gotten through would blow some of your minds," she wrote on the social networking site. "God just dealt me a new hand today. I reaaaaaaaaaaallllly good hand."


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