Yesterday, Drewreports.com broke the news that Rowdy Records owner, Super producer Dallas Austin, cleaned house and fired most of his staff including longtime employees David Gates, Dallas’ nephew Juan Farmer and his assistant Eli.
Dallas Austin, fresh off a trip to Hawaii, reached out to me yesterday to clear up rumors that the firings were the result of financial difficulties. Dallas wanted to make it clear that he never had financial backers who walked away leaving him holding the bag.
“I’ve been doing this since I was 16, 17 years old,” said Dallas, creator of the successful movie Drum Line starring Nick Cannon.
“I’ve owned publishing companies before anybody around here. I was like the first one to do it,” said Dallas. “I’ve owned studios before anybody around here. I’ve owned 100% of my songs. I’ve invested in films, Rowdy TV… As far as my companies are concerned, I’m my own investor. How could I be broke when you open up DUB magazine and I’m standing there with 9 cars! I’ve always been my own investor. I own all my companies by myself. I don’t have no partners.”
But an insider close to the Rowdy camp said that’s not true. “Dallas had financial backers for Monica’s first album and for Sammie’s album,” said the source who acknowledged she didn’t know who the financial backers were. She said Dallas made the right move by letting go of his nephew and Gates whom she called “cancers in Rowdy”. She said the two men used Rowdy Records’ cash “to eat off” and never did any work around the offices.
The source said the last straw for Dallas came last month when Gates and Farmer “ran up a bar tab of $30,000” and expensed it back to the company for Dallas to pay for. The source said Farmer, in particular, used Rowdy offices as a meeting place for his own business ventures including his popular “Hollywood Hideout” nights at Club Noir.
Dallas acknowledged as much saying he had to let Farmer and Gates go in order to “restructure the company to bring in new people who know more [about the record business] than I do.”
Dallas said he understood that feelings were hurt but he didn’t just kick his loyal employees to the curb. “These people been around me a long time so I still take care of ’em,” he said. It wasn’t just like ‘oh, just get out of here’ I made sure everybody was straight, gave them [severance] packages… I said [to Farmer] ‘go ahead man, do your [party promotions] thing, I’m wit’ you. Get to the next level.” He added, “Juan is a great guy to a lot of people. He has a loyal character.”
Dallas’ immediate plans include putting out new music by his artists Sy Scott and Sammie, and launching his Rowdy Clothing line, “I finished my Rowdy clothing line which is going out to over 400 stores,” he said. “So it was just time to clean house and make a new start. You watch what Rowdy Entertainment does this year!”
