“People keep saying, ‘Jermaine, you dropped the ball on [Latto],'” Dupri recently told the outlet. “But what people don’t understand is, I put Latto’s record out. The deal was if you win on The Rap Game, you get a single from Jermaine Dupri. So that single came out.”

In 2016, the show featured five young rappers and made them compete in a series of challenges such as rapping, live performances and recording titles. Although Latto won the competition, Dupri points to her age as one reason she didn’t immediately become more popular after the show aired.

“The problem was, was that Latto was 16 years old, and the outlets didn’t support it. And nobody was like speaking on it. Nobody talked about it. If you watched the TV show, you saw it,” Dupri said. “But people didn’t really start talking about Latto until she started making more vulgar records, dressing more sexual, and being more adult.”

At the time, Latto shared that she didn’t sign with Dupri’s label because the deal wasn’t attractive to her as an artist. 

“Even though I was a kid in the industry, I never conducted myself like a kid,” Latto told VladTV in 2016. “I took everything for what it was. I was never starstruck or anything like that.”

Latto said she had won a lot of money from the competition, had built a solid social media following and a fan base and was already booking shows.

“It has to be something that I can’t pay for it myself. I can pay for video shoots; I can pay for studio time. I have my own studio as well,” Latto said.

The rapper invested money in opening a clothing store with a music studio in the back.

“My mom handles all my finances, everything behind the scenes, and my dad is here with me; he’s my manager,” she shared. “I have to feel comfortable around you. I’m not a product. I am a product but don’t treat me like a product. A lot of people in the industry, they just want to see their money in their bank account grow; they don’t look at you as a human being.”

The rapper said she received a record deal offer months after the show ended. Instead, it came through as a contract sent to her lawyer by Dupri’s lawyer, which was different from how she wanted to work.

In a recent interview, Latto addressed criticism concerning her sexually charged lyrics. 

“When I changed as a woman, my music changed,” she said on an episode of NPR’s Louder Than a Riot podcast.

“I went from living in my mama house and having a curfew to being grown. I’m f**king, I’m s**king, and I’m rapping about it. It is what it is. I guess I could see how that could be interpreted differently because people didn’t see the transition.”