Defsounds

Rap mogul Jay-Z has officially signed a distribution deal with Sony for his brand spankin' new label, Roc Nation.

"Sony is Roc Nation. That's where Roc Nation's going through," Jay-Z told Billboard. The rapper's new album The Blueprint 3 (slated for a Semptember 11th release), however, is a one-album distribution deal through Atlantic Records.

"That's pretty much just for this specific album. Roc Nation - we're experts in marketing and making records. But we do distribution deals," he says. "On this one, we're working directly with the Atlantic staff, which is Julie [Greenwald], Lyor [Cohen], Kevin [Liles] and Kyse [Mike Kyser]. For the rest of the Roc Nation artists, we did a distribution deal with Sony."

Jay-Z originally offered to have the Roc Nation imprint to be distributed through his longtime label, Def Jam, over four years ago but was quickly denied.

"You have to figure, this is like four years ago, and to them it was just like, 'Are you crazy? No! Make a song!'" he said. "To me it was like, I've sold companies for huge amounts of money. I'm an entrepreneur -- that's what I've been all my life. I can't just sit here and make records and not do anything else. Why wouldn't you want to do this with me? I felt under-utilized."