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BallerStatus.com has an interview with Jadakiss. They asked him about Mark Curry's book and Diddy's business ethics. Somewhat surprisingly, Jadakiss pretty much shut Curry down, saying that how Diddy conducts business is normal and even admitting that how The Lox conducted theirs, i.e. through the radio, was not the way to approach a business situation.

BallerStatus.com: Yeah, [Curry wrote] about Diddy and his ethics of business. I know in the past, you and The LOX were vocal about business with Diddy. What do you think about Mark Curry's accusations that he's made?

Jadakiss: Every artist is different. Every individual is different. That might be how he feel at the moment. We were very vocal about the publishing thing, which helped us out a little. Maybe it didn't help us out, but we just got hot headed and lost our cool a little because that ain't really the way to conduct business over the airwaves and we were able to work it out with Diddy. Maybe he got some different issues, maybe he feel some kind of way, or maybe he don't feel no way at all and just felt like doing a book since he never got to put out an album and that's how that went down.

BallerStatus.com: Do you think his business ethics are bad?

Jadakiss: Diddy learned from somebody else. Now that I'm grown and understand the game, I can't really be mad at what he learned. This business was here 100 years before Diddy became a CEO. He makes his business and his contracts beneficial for him, which there's nothing wrong with that. If you conducting business and you got the right lawyers that's telling you to write what these contracts are saying, at the end of the day, when you're signing any contract it should be beneficial for you. But if you're just blind to the fact and you're just happy to be down with Bad Boy like [The LOX] was 'cause it was so hot, we just signed some sh** we didn't really look at 'til two, three years later. And this is happening today. There's going to be a bunch of people making books like Mark Curry. There's going to be a bunch of more people riffing with label heads about publishing and money that's owed to them, so that's going to always go on, because if you don't pay attention, it's really on you. He can't do nothing contractually that you didn't agree to.

Hip hop is sort of an alternate reality. If you sign a contract that is beneficial to you (which is the aim of signing a contract in the first place, as Jadakiss says) and you execute that contract, you can be vilified, you are a "paperwork gangster." As if handling your business like a responsible person is a bad thing.

Sometimes, what isn't recognized is the investment that labels make when they sign an artist, the money that is put out. Some artists make good; most don't. Does anyone get up in arms because the label didn't see a return on it's investment? Then, why would you get up in arms if the label purchased the rights to someones work and the work did well? You can't have it both ways, you can't be on both sides.

Business, good business, is making moves that put the business in a position to be successful. That goes for everyone. At the core is this simple fact: people take the best offer they have at the time. When The Lox signed their contract, they didn't think "wow, this is a bad deal, let's sign it." No, they thought "this is a great deal, we should take it." Maybe they had ill founded notions, maybe they were wrong, maybe they didn't do their own due diligence.

But, if The Lox hadn't been successful (and a part of their success was Bad Boy and Diddy and that propelled them to enjoy the success they enjoy, to this day), Bad Boy would have lost money. Would there have been a "Let Bad Boy Go" or "Give Bad Boy Back Their Money" campaign? No, of course not. Bad Boy entered into a contract with them and, for better or for worse, they were tied to The Lox. That's just the way it is.