this is what I been posting here for about a year but I dont think people understand...its very confusing to the average person. they still are thinking EXCLUSIVE RECORDING DEAL as opposed to the newer DISTRIBUTION DEALS.
I brought this up when people kept saying Jay looked out for Jaz. This is all media hype and really not much substance. EQ Distro is owned by Roc Nation. its a separate entity under the same umbrella. Jay doesnt have any dealings with it on a day to day, its just owned by a parent company. In the past you had record labels. Those labels needed distribution for their physical product. Those days are long gone with everything being digital. So now there is no need for actual physical distribution. These deals are the industry's way of making money off artists while doing basically the same thing the artist now has the ability to do themselves.
Distribution deal is just a fancy term today for promotion deal. They promote your music and take half the profit. This is for those who dont wish to sign 360 deals and want to keep control of their branding but wish to hire a promotional firm. The politicking looks good. The optics are fantastic. They asked Jaz about it and he couldnt really lie but at the same time gave off the impression that Jay hooked him up. People (including a lot of Coli members) were saying that Jaz was signed to Roc Nation which is false. Jay simple told Jaz to go holla at my folk over at EQ and thats what happened. The pub did benefit Jaz however, so thats a good thing.
Now back to what you were saying about releasing projects outside of Shady. People think this is something special because they are looking in terms of recording deals. The only thing the Shady deal is good for is to promote whatever official Shady release the artist has. My lil cuz has a distribution deal with Addventure Records (Chris Gotti). You dont even get any bread off them shyts. Its like signing to a P.R. firm. This is another thing that annoys me about Vlad as I was posting earlier today. He is perpetuating this misinformation by saying its unprecedented for a label to allow an artist to release whatever they want.
Indy artists today can now send their album to the highest bidding label if they feel the project is big enough. Take Skyzoo for instance. He bids his albums out to find a home for them. One of his last EP's was on Tuffkong while another was on Mello Music Group.
On the other hand, people trashing Griselda for signing with Shady are off key as well. It didnt hurt them, to this point it helped them. At worst they didnt NEED to sign a distribution deal with Shady. Really the only thing Shady can do for them is some posts on social media.
If Burden of Proof was distributed by Shady all that wouldve been was more hands in the pot and Shady taking about 50% of the profits for literally doing jack but posting and retweeting. They really cant even do any shows or large venues, they still doing club sized joints. they dont even have 1 mil IG followers between the three of them.

if they did a large venue, they would still be the undercard to a group like LOX.
I think the confusion is coming in where people think Griselda works for Shady when its the other way around. Shady only going to be involved to the level it behooves them to be.