Pitchfork

For their third album, the still unfinished Getback, Durham hip hop group Little Brother are leaving a few people behind. First, according to HipHopGame.com, they have split with longtime producer 9th Wonder. MC Big Pooh told the site that they "decided, in the best interest of the group, for Little Brother and 9th Wonder to part ways. There are no hard feelings and no beef. This is just a decision that had to be made so all three of us could move forward and continue to provide the world with dope music."

Next, Pooh also explained to HipHopGame.com that Little Brother "are in the process of negotiating our release from [Atlantic] due to a difference in philosophies," going into a little bit more detail than he did about the 9th Wonder situation as to what exactly those differences are. "We didn't have an A&R for The Minstrel Show. We don't have any type of relationship with our current A&R. There are just a lot of internal issues that ended up working against us... [It's not] a situation where they decided to drop us due to lack of sales. If that was the case, they never would have opened up the budget for us to record Getback."

As for exactly when they will leave the label and who will put out Getback, Little Brother manager Big Dho said, "I think we may just put the album out on Asylum to close our deal, but it's definitely a wrap for us at Atlantic."

Little Brother will release a free mixtape titled And Justus for All for download on February 13. DJ Mick Boogie mixed the tape, and Pooh said the decision to offer it online was a result of the recent DJ Drama drama. "After the Drama situation, we felt it was in the best interest of all of us to just give this mixtape away, with the current climate of the mixtape scene."