Azealia Banks has told her fans to stop streaming her debut album, Broke With Expensive Taste, because she doesn’t earn any royalties from it.
The “212” hitmaker has accused Jeff Kwatinetz — whose label Prospect Park, she departed in 2015 over disagreements — of allegedly stealing all of the money she made from the 2014 LP, leaving her with just $15,000.
In a statement, she wrote on Instagram: “It’s with deep pain that I must ask all of my fans to stop streaming My debut album Broke With Expensive Taste.
“Jeff Kwatinetz stole all the money and sent a $15k check for [an] album that has been streamed over 200m times.
“The pain I feel right now is so deep.
“I lost ‘212.’
“I worked so hard on that record. But every stream goes into his pocket. (sic)”
The 29-year-old rapper is hoping to be able to create physical CDs from the master copy of the album in a bid to be able to pay back the producers who worked on the songs.
Azealia feels “completely demoralized” by Jeff.
She added: “I have the master drive and will figure out a way to press physicals so you can enjoy the music and I can pay the producers on it the royalties they have been waiting six years for.
“Just whatever you do, do not stream the album.
“I am completely demoralized.”
The controversial star also posted email exchanges with Jeff from 2014, in which he “reiterated” that he “would never take advantage” of his former client and that he puts “ethics” and his artists “first and foremost.”
Azealia had previously insisted she was unable to release new music until March 2016, due to her conflict with the label.
The “Anna Wintour” star is pleading with her fans not to stream the LP, which comes a month after she reached out to Ice Cube — who is a business partner of Jeff’s in the basketball league Big3 — to ask him to try and use his “influence” to persuade Jeff to hand over the money she claims he owes her.
In a since-deleted tweet, she informed the hip-hop star: “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?
“I worked very hard on that album and Jeff wasn’t the person who paid for its production.
“Universal did. Jeff purposely released an uncleared record acting as Manager & Label and has screwed me out of millions of dollars. (sic)”
