Teyana Taylor Confirms She Wants To Retire Unless Def Jam Agrees To Release Her
Teyana Taylor is the latest major label artist to feel unrecognized and undervalued following the most recent round of Grammy nominations. On Friday, Taylor threw her hat into the ring alongside the Weeknd, Halsey, and Ellie Goulding to talk about her increasing cynicism about the music industry. In an Instagram post highlighting her Spotify year-in-review statistics, she implied that she might be retiring from music. In an Instagram story on Saturday, she basically confirmed it, at least if her label Def Jam doesn’t drop her.
“That post was to warn my label who I’ve been signed to for almost 10 years. Everything that you guys see of me, everything that I put out, everything that I do is 100% me,” Taylor said. “There’s no gun to anybody’s head to do anything that they don’t want to do. So yes, I am going to feel under appreciated if I’m putting in 110% and my label is giving me — they’re reciprocating, what, 10% of that?”
“The crazy part about it is I asked Def Jam to drop me on almost 10 different occasions, straight to their face, up in the building, at the table. Like, ‘Yo, just drop me, because at this point, I can’t let this kill me,” she went on, per Billboard.
“I can see maybe how my message can come across, but at the same time, I feel like it’s a tiny bit selfish to say, ‘What about your fans? Do it for your fans,'” Taylor continued. “Baby, I gotta do it for my mental health. I have to do it for my emotional health. I have to do it for my kids, so I can stay alive for my kids. Until I’m free, until I can get [Def Jam] to release me, yes I want to retire. I don’t want to do this anymore.”
Here’s the full video:
Teyana Taylor released her latest project, The Album, in June. When the Grammy nominations for this year were announced, she pointed out that all the nominees for Best R&B Album were men.