Hit-Boy is out from under his Universal Music contract

For the first time in 18 years, Grammy-winning hip-hop producer and rapper Hit-Boy is free of the publishing contract he signed with Universal Music Publishing Group as a teenager, Spin reported on August 5. He said he did not grasp how unfavorable the deal was until 2011, when he co-produced the diamond-certified, Grammy-winning Jay-Z and Kanye West single "Niggas in Paris," and watched demand for his beats grow without a matching payoff for himself.

"I'm just breathing and creating the illest shit I could possibly make," Hit-Boy told Spin. "It feels like just straight freedom."

During his years under the UMPG deal, Hit-Boy produced Nas's Grammy-winning King's Disease in 2020 and five further albums with the rapper, alongside work for Beyonce, Snoop Dogg, The Game and Doechii. He also stepped out from behind the boards to rap on his own project Sftwre Updte, drawing attention for tracks like "CROW BARS" and "Ricky" with the Alchemist, and has since released two collaborative albums, Goldfish with the Alchemist and Yeast Talkin' with Spank Nitti James.

Hit-Boy credited a friend from his teenage years with the advice that shaped his career: "the only way we're not going to make it is if we quit." He said the friend, who died last year without ever building a music career of his own, taught him how to produce when they were both 15. Hit-Boy is now raising his six-year-old son, Chauncey Hollis III, as a single father, and says the boy's own refusal to give up motivates his writing.

With the UMPG contract behind him, Hit-Boy is finishing Success Is a Dirty Word, a follow-up to his 2012 album HITstory. "I got some fire shit about to drop," he said. "I got creative beats on there and good raps, hooks, all type. Now that I'm taking more control, this shit is looking great." The deal's end comes as HITstory 2 arrives on streaming services, the project he has called a sequel to the original.