May 21 2009 3:17 PM EDT
Jay is happy to be 'a completely independent artist' after buying out his contract.
On Thursday afternoon, Jay contacted RapRadar.com and confirmed his departure.
"I can honestly say, working with Doug Morris and L.A. Reid has been a unique and fulfilling experience, and I respect them immensely," Hov told the Web site. "I've been in the family for almost my entire career. Doug and I spoke directly and had one of the most unique 'negotiations' ever."
Jay said that negotiation included a coin toss. "Doug won the toss, but we both won in the end," Jay said. "I thank him for allowing me to be a completely independent artist. Not every artist can say they own or are given the opportunity to own all of their music."
Jay started his own record company, Roc Nation, and has been working on the Blueprint 3 with Kanye West since 2008.
In February, Jay joked that he was too free in making his latest opus.
"If I don't have any time constraints, I'll mess around, I'll never get it done," he said. "I'll be Axl Rose out here! It'll be 12 years later, and we'll be talking about Chinese Democracy. I really like the [time constraints]. But whatever happens, [the album] may turn out better, 'cause it'll be done when it's right."
I think this is a great move on Jay's part. Not surprising as he usually makes good business decisions. The deal he made with LiveNation sets him up nicely to do things like this. Def Jam on the other hand is losing a HUGE artist. A lot of people are saying that Def Jam's future isn't that bright and that the staff there is the reason. If Jay is williing to give up 5 million to leave when he only has one album left on his contract, what does that say? The music industry is definitely changing and its seems like it's pushing more and more talented artists to go independent which is can be harder because they don't have the financial and promotional backing from a label. Jay-Z should be fine but others might not be.
