Yung Bleu recently sat down with DJ Akademiks, where he spoke about how labels went into a bidding war for him to sign after collaborating with Drake on "You're Mines Still."
Bleu explained that he was still a struggling artist after leaving his Columbia deal in 2019, and he added that he was considering taking a deal that offered a $250,000 advance for four projects and the rights to his old masters. However, Yung Bleu signed an independent deal with EMPIRE, which included $150,000 for an EP release, and $300,000 for "Love Scars: The 5 Stages Of Emotions." The project featured the solo version of "You're Mines Still," which caught the attention of Drake, who reached out to Yung Bleu for a remix.
Yung Bleu then shared what his next thoughts were, explaining, "I was like, ‘Man, if they give me this money for this project, why would I tie myself down?' And then they promising me another $300K, so I just made like $450K with them in six months. ‘Sh*t, this the wave!’ I text Nima [Etminan, CEO of EMPIRE] one day like, ‘Man, Drake told me to send him ‘You’re Mines Still.” He like, ‘Get the f*** out of here.'"
After doing the remix, which blew up and put Yung Bleu in the spotlight, a bidding war started. Yung Blue stated, "That’s when I started seeing them real numbers. Just to put it into perspective, as soon as the Drake record dropped, I was having bidding wars between $8 and $9 million."
Despite labels clamoring for him, Yung Bleu explained why he stayed with EMPIRE, "See, this is why I fuck with EMPIRE because they still had me for another project, so once I did the Drake song, they came back and redid my deal to way more. But they ain’t have to, though, because they still had me for the $300,000. A major label’s not finna do that."
