Rapper Jonathan Emile Pens Letter to Kendrick Lamar Claiming ‘Intimidation’ from TDE

Wherever in the world Kendrick Lamar may be, he should probably take a few minutes to do some serious reading after Montreal rapper Jonathan Emile penned an open letter to him. The MC wrote the letter via DJ Booth this week, which addresses the rapper's ongoing legal battle with Lamar's label, Top Dawg Entertainment.

In the letter, Emile details his experiences of his back-and-forth over the years with the record label after he released his 2015 song "Heaven Help Them," which features a verse from the West Coast MC. The Montreal rapper states that he has been subjected to "bullying, intimidation and exploitation" from the label during the court case, and has made it very difficult for him to make and release music online.

In November 2011, Emile approached TDE with a proposal to collaborate with Kendrick, which was approved, leading to him paying for the verse in two installments. Later in 2012, he received the finished song by TDE's in-house technician Mixed by Ali, but couldn't get back in touch with TDE about Lamar's acapella, or signing contracts. Once Emile went ahead and released "Heaven Help Them" online, it was met with tons of praise and hundreds of thousands of plays. However, it also began an intense legal battle with the label.

He soon received a confrontational phone call from TDE CEO, Anthony "Top Dawg" Tiffith, who threatened that Universal Music Group would be removing the song from the Internet, which happened shortly after.

The letter goes into detail of how hard the legal battle has been for Emile, asking Kendrick to speak up to his label about the ordeal. Read the full letter here.