Puff owned a record label, production company and publishing company. He also owned the marketing company blue flame to promote the music. Plus he had the connections in the industry for distribution and radio since his uptown days. He gave his artists the tool box they needed to make music, create a brand for themselves and reach people around the world. That doesn’t come cheap.
If you sign a contract for this one window approach and get mad after the fact then what can anyone really say? Buy beats from the hitmen, buy studio time from daddy’s house, let the marketing team design your image and brand, and shoot videos in the badboy style. All of those activities are the artists expense and that comes out of the contract in some way, it isn’t free.
If a rapper wants to sell a portion of their publishing because they wanted money at the time as they have no credit or no way to leverage their financial position then selling your publishing may be the only way to get you out a tough situation if you already spent your advance and are blowing money on women, parties, chains and crystal.
But puff has to now daddy people and tell them how to live their life too? Nah
Also puff was taking all the risk back in the 90s and when you put out something on badboy that was the Chicago bulls of rap back then you got to pay to use that system and those marketing channels.