Lil Pump, the 17-year-old rapper from Florida, just scored a record deal with Warner Bros. Records, and it’s for a pretty major penny.
According to TMZ, the teen will get an $8 million advance. Then over the next three years, he’ll get $9,000, $12,000 and $15,000 respectively. The contract is for seven years as opposed to a specific number of albums, and he’ll get 14 percent royalties on all U.S. sales. He’ll also receive even higher royalties, as much as 66 percent, in other formats.
Lil Pump, real name Gazzy Garcia, shot to fame after his single “Gucci Gang” blew up in 2017 and claimed the No. 3 position on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart. Since then, along with rappers like Tekashi 6ix9ine and XXXTentacion, Pump has developed a legion of fans by turning SoundCloud success into a place on the charts.
But regardless of Pump’s $8 million dollar deal and newfound success, he surely won’t be patted on the back by everyone, especially not by some Black folks.
In February, the Los Angeles police paid him a visit after they received a call about a gunshot going off in his apartment. At first, Pump said that three Black men forced their way inside and fired a bullet through his front door.
But when police noticed that the gunshot came from inside of the door, not the outside, the rapper was caught red-handed. Pump then admitted that he fired the gun and made up the whole story about the Black men trying to rob him.
Afterward, the authorities received a search warrant into the apartment, seized some marijuana and found a .380 Glock pistol in the buses underneath his balcony.
The teen was eventually charged with illegal discharge of a firearm and was sent to juvenile hall, where he was later released and placed on house arrest.
Whether people remind Pump about his imaginary Black man story in the future remains to be seen, but it doesn’t seem like he’s faced that much backlash so far.
In fact, the chatter seemed louder when the teen said that he and Migos run hip-hop culture. It’s something he recently said on Instagram and unleashed profanities on those who dared to disagree. “And if you feel some type of way, suck my d—,” he said.
Despite Pump’s huge deal, he hasn’t boasted much about it on social media. That could be because earlier this year he promised to turn down any offer that was under $15 million. The rapper made that bold statement shortly after an initial Warner Bros. deal fell through because he’s a minor and it wasn’t validated by the courts.
“New deals on the way, bitch,” he said at the time. “If you ain’t got 15 [million] don’t talk to me, bitch, at all. I don’t want no meeting unless you talking 15 and up. I don’t want to talk to nobody.”
