Russ has officially released his first independent project after leaving Columbia Records earlier this year.
Though albums traditionally drop on Fridays, Russ decided to shake the snow globe and instead released his new CHOMP EP on Tuesday (November 17) – which is actually the old formula, as albums used to arrive on Tuesdays in the U.S. before the industry switched over in 2015.
View this post on Instagram
The five-track effort features appearances from KXNG Crooked, Ab-Soul, Busta Rhymes, Benny The Butcher and Black Thought, while production is handled by Russ himself on two tracks as well as legendary beatmakers DJ Premier, The Alchemist and 9th Wonder.
Russ left Columbia Records in June following the May release of the deluxe version of his final album in his deal with the label, SHAKE THE SNOW GLOBE. Earlier this month, he revealed the risk of going independent paid off in a major way by showing a pair of weekly checks that came out to $89,704.79 and $107,396.80, respectively.
“Some weekly checks on tunecore..inspo purposes only artists : own your music and stop letting these labels take 15% distribution fees for pressing an upload button,” he tweeted with the images.
The New Jersey native has also been adamant about artists owning their own masters, and shared a screenshot of the growth of his streams and sales in a post over the summer to highlight its importance.
“For inspirational purposes,” he wrote. “My come up. OWNERSHIP. Ups and downs is all part of the journey. STICK WITH IT. The big dip in fall of 2016 is when I partnered and moved my main earners over to Columbia cuz I wanted them on my debut album.”
He continued, “I stopped it at 2017 cuz I don’t need y’all fully in my pockets like that but also, every dollar on this I kept (except taxes) cuz as some have liked to laugh at, I produced mixed mastered engineered and wrote all of this. I been laughing the whole time!!! TAG AN ARTIST WHO NEEDS TO SEE THIS.”
Stream CHOMP below.