Iggy Azalea Parts Ways With Her Record Company, And She’s Happy About It

Iggy Azalea and her former record company, Island Records, have ended their business relationship. While news like this is often a source of disappointment for musical artists, Azalea seems overjoyed.

“I’m officially unsigned!!!!” she wrote on Twitter on Saturday, November 3. “Wild you spend so long trying to get IN a record deal… never thought I’d be so elated to be OUT of one. now I’m free to release whatever kinda music I like, whenever I’d like woooo!”

As XXL notes, Iggy Azalea has had many record label issues in the past. She was signed to Def Jam when she released her first album, The New Classic, in 2014. But despite a No. 1 single, “Fancy,” Azalea’s career took a nosedive in the aftermath thanks to public feuds with other artists — and bizarrely Papa John’s — plus accusations of cultural appropriation.

“Before it was like, ‘We’re at the top of the mountain, and we have to stay at the top,'” she said in an interview with Billboard earlier this year. “I slid down the mountain a bit.”

At the end of 2014, her planned arena tour was canceled and her second album, Digital Distortion, was panned.

According to XXL, she switched from Def Jam Records to Island records because Def Jam’s CEO, Steve Bartels, did not want her to release new singles from the album. She made the dispute with the record exec public with a post to her millions of Twitter followers which detailed the reasons for her frustration.

“Steve Bartels says he doesn’t want to release another single for my album, unfortunately — So that’s that,” she tweeted. “I’m very unhappy with the way things have been handled too. I will make sure it’s not this way for ia3… I can assure you guys of that.”

Despite her new “free agent” status, Iggy Azalea told her fans not to expect new music anytime soon. She, however, assured them that they will get new work from her in 2019.

“I am nowhere near ready direction wise etc with the stuff I’ve been working on and I don’t wanna jump the gun and have some messy era aesthetically,” she wrote. “I’m aiming to be ready to share new music early next year!”

In a subsequent tweet, she thanked her followers for the support, after admitting that she’d previously thought no one would understand her decision to go the independent route.

“Everyone’s been really supportive of this move,” she wrote before adding, “thanks for understanding and making me even more excited for all the new stuff. Skys the limit.”