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Artist News Releases
Warren G thinking of rerecording debut album to own the masters
By Chris Cooke | Published on Wednesday 12 August 2015
Warren G, who has just released a new EP that is officially a sequel to his 1994 debut LP ‘Regulate… G Funk Era’, has said he plans to re-record the original record, so that he has ownership of a master recording of the album.
The 1994 longplayer was released and is still controlled by Def Jam – now a wholly owned Universal subsidiary of course – and G implies that efforts to reach a new deal with the major over that record have been unsuccessful. Hence him considering that old ruse of just re-recording the damn thing, thus creating a new set of masters, and a new copyright that he can own.
He told Billboard: “I’mma re-record it. I’m gonna do a re-recording of the whole album, so then I own my masters. Right now, Def Jam owns my masters. They don’t want to give them back and I need to get them back because they been living off me for over 20 years”.
Of course record contracts usually cover this ruse, and ban artists from re-recording works originally released by a label for a set time. It’s not clear whether any such contractual restrictions did or still apply here.
He continues: “I just want to be able to get my music back in my possession. I could live off my own music. If they don’t give them back to me, I’ll re-record the whole album and then that’s considered… I would own the masters of those master recordings. That would all be for me”.
