Charli Baltimore was signed to Lance ‘Un’ Rivera’s Untertainment imprint in the late ’90s – and in a new interview, she likened the deal to slavery.
The “Down Ass Bitch” rapper recently sat down for an in-depth conversation with Vlad TV, where they touched on the topic of artists re-recording their old work to regain control of the residuals. While expressing solidarity with her former Murder Inc. labelmate Ashanti for doing so, Chuck shared details about her contract that would have made her do the same if it was worth it.
“If I were to take my contract from Untertainment and show it to a lawyer now or an artist that really understands contracts, they’d be like, ‘This looks like some form of slavery,’” she said. “Like they were that bad. They really were. they were that bad. So I feel like artists have way more business savvy now. It’s just so many different ways and avenues to make money.”
Check out the full interview below:
In another part of the Charli Baltimore conversation, she recounted the aftermath of Un Rivera’s stabbing, which took place in December 1999 at a Q-Tip album release party. JAY-Z’s then-upcoming Volume 3: The Life and Times of S. Carter album had been bootlegged, and rumors were swirling that Rivera was responsible.
Chuck recalled walking into the party immediately after the violent incident. “I actually walked up, and Un was on the ground. And I’m like, ‘What are you doing?’ And he’s like, ‘I’m stabbed, I’m stabbed. Jay stabbed me.’ So I’m like, what. And he’s like, ‘JAY-Z stabbed me.’”
As Vlad laid out during the interview, there are multiple accounts of what happened at the party. Witnesses at the time fingered Hov for the assault. He initially pleaded not guilty, but he eventually changed his plea to guilty for a misdemeanor assault charge.
Jay stopped just short of admitting to the stabbing in his book Decoded. “Before I even realized what I was doing, I headed back over to [Rivera], but this time I was blacking out with anger,” he wrote. “The next thing I knew, all hell had broken loose in the club.
“That night the guy went straight to the police and I was charged with assault.”
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In the years since, Hov has made light of the incident on songs. “N-ggas back up, they know I’m not no fronter,” he rhymes on Memphis Bleek’s “Dear Summer.” “I don’t talk shit, I just flip it Un ya/ Sorry Lance, I’m just trying to advance my quotes/ I ain’t making you the butt of my jokes.”
Earlier this year, Rivera denied to Vlad that Jay was the stabber. When asked point blank if Jay was the one who stabbed him, he replied with a laugh: “No. JAY-Z was not the guy that actually stabbed me that night.”
When informed that Rivera said this, Baltimore responded: “I just know what he told me, and he kept saying it. He just kept saying it over and over and over again.”
“It’s like Unsolved Mysteries or something,” she added.
