Lupe Fiasco Says Atlantic Bought "Kick, Push" Sample To Own His Song

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It’s no secret that record labels and artists don’t always see eye to eye, and one rapper who has long been vocal about his rocky relationship with the powers that be is Lupe Fiasco. In 2014, the rapper publicly announced that he was excited about getting out of his contract before dropping Tetsuo & Youth the following year, therefore completing his contract with the label.

Fast forward to present day, Lupe hopped onto Instagram Live with Joe Budden to talk about his experiences with Atlantic in more detail, telling a story about how they delayed the release of his first huge single, “Kick, Push.”

The rapper revealed that some of the team over at Atlantic Records had “actively slowed down” the single because they didn’t entirely own the rights. The beat for the track is built around a sample of Filipina singer Celeste Legaspi’s 1982 song “Bolero Medley,” so, Atlantic allegedly tracked her down to buy the rights to that song so they could, in turn, get the rights to “Kick, Push.”

“You know what they did? They flew down to the Philippines to find the woman who we sampled the record from,” he explained. “And bought the entire record from her. They actually own the song ‘Kick, Push’ is sampled from. That’s what they did.”

Talk about dedication. It’s not hard to see why Lupe Fiasco and Atlantic Records had a turbulent relationship from day one.