Bladee discusses YEAR0001 departure in new interview

Speaking with Pitchfork, the rapper shared a few details about his acrimonious split from his longtime label.

For most of Bladee’s career, the Swedish rapper released almost all of his full-length material with the Stockholm-based label YEAR0001. That came to an end in 2024 with the release of his solo album Cold Visions, shared via Bladee’s own label Trash Island, and Psykos, a collaborative project with fellow former YEAR0001 signee Yung Lean (World Affairs, Lean’s label, handled that release).

In November Bladee reshared a Yung Lean Instagram post announcing the end of his affiliation with YEAR0001. Lean wrote that the label “are not my record label, my management company, or my merchandiser.” Bladee reshared the post, adding “We are Not working or affiliated with the year0001 label no wayyy.” In a new interview with Pitchfork, Bladee has discussed the circumstances that led to his departure from the label.

Bladee says that his professional relationship with YEAR0001 “ended bad,” and claims “[a] lot of stuff wasn’t what we thought it was, so we had to part ways. I don’t owe them my next five projects, so it is what it is.”

Contacted by Pitchfork, YEAR0001 co-founder Emilio Fagone said that the label did not set out to hurt their signed artists. “[I’m] disappointed we couldn’t talk about our disagreements face to face. When you’re as intertwined as we were, you’d expect there to be conflict but I can wholeheartedly say our intentions were pure. In the end, all we got was a very long letter from a lawyer.”

Bladee responded: “We always trusted them as friends, but when we got a lawyer it was brought to our attention that a lot of things were not in order or standard. It was not a personal decision, but a professional one, to part ways.”

Elsewhere, Bladee discusses his rough ideas for new music, expressing interest in reuniting with longtime producer Whitearmor to create “something more positive” than Cold Visions. “I don’t want to jinx it, but it’s something with Saint George—I’m trying to use Saint George to make some music.”

Read Pitchfork’s full profile of Bladee here