Azealia Banks asks fans to stop streaming debut record, 'Broke With Expensive Taste' | NME

Rapper Azealia Banks has asked fans to longer stream her debut album, ‘Broke With Expensive Taste’ after alleging the only person to profit from the revenue is the label Prospect Park’s chief executive, Jeff Kwatinetz.

In an Instagram post shared today (July 12), Banks said the producers haven’t been receiving royalties from the record since its release.

“Jeff Kwatinetz stole all the money and sent a $15k check for album that has been streamed over 200m times,” she claimed.

“I worked so hard on that record. But every stream goes into his pocket.”

The rapper has also said she has the master recordings and is exploring ways to re-issue the record.

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Please do not stream the album

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In a follow-up post, Banks shared alleged email correspondence between herself and Kwatinetz. In the email, Kwatinetz apparently discussed the reasoning behind Banks’ one-record deal with Prospect Park and that he’d “never want to take advantage of you in any way”.

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The original lie

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Prospect Park released ‘Broke With Expensive Taste’ in November 2014, Banks’ only record released through the label. Back in 2015, Banks split from Prospect Park’s management services and said she was unable to release music until March 2016 due to a contract dispute with the label.

Last month, Banks contacted Ice Cube, Kwatinetz’ business partner in basketball league Big3, over Twitter with similar claims.







“Your white manager Jeff Kwatinetz has stolen all of the royalties from my debut album and I was wondering if you could use your influence to get them for me?” Banks said in a now-deleted tweet.

“I worked very hard on that album and Jeff wasn’t the person who paid for its production,” she wrote. “Universal did. Jeff purposely released an uncleared record acting as Manager & Label and has screwed me out of millions of dollars.”