Rap veteran Fat Joe is slamming major record labels for their alleged “funny” practices, which he compared to Ponzi schemes.

The 52-year-old rapper recently spoke with the Wall Street Journal about his decision to leave Atlantic Records and launch his own independent label, Terror Squad Productions. Joe cited feeling unappreciated and exploited 17 years ago and claimed that ultimately resulted in his decision to exit the music behemoth.

Speaking to WSJ’s Jason Gay, Joe stated: “I don’t believe in these people. For one, I feel like the major label system is a Ponzi scheme, and they do funny math.”

Joe went on to assert that he was never able to comprehend why he and other musicians could sell so many records while receiving barely any financial rewards.

“You had to be like the Fugees, who sold 30 million records, to make a dollar,” he explained. “I was talking to [Jennifer Lopez] about it—and you know J.Lo’s a megastar—and she was like, ‘Man, you know these guys, they only give you this [amount] and you never recoup.’ So, it’s a funny math.”

Joe then opened up about how labels that valued business above his work made him feel confused and ignored.

He said, “Artists, we’re so passionate about our story, we’re so passionate about our music. I would have to go walk into an office to a guy who didn’t even really understand our art and culture. They just knew how to market, how to promote and make the most profit. I used to beg ’em: ‘Are you gonna push my record? Are you really gonna press the button? Are you really gonna go for it?’”

The “Make It Rain” hitmaker then explained how going independent after several years under a major label was the right move for him.

“I’m self-funding everything,” he said. “I would go on tour for a month or two—Yugoslavia, China, anywhere you name—save all my money and then invest in making the album, making the videos, promoting it. And even though I went independent, I kept that same look.”

To avoid seeming ungrateful, Joe shared with Gay that not all of his experiences at Atlantic had been adverse and that there had been times when he felt valued. Only it all changed when things went south.

“I would walk into Atlantic Records, and they would have a poster of me, six stories high,” he explained. “It was only me. … I would walk in there and I would feel so cocky. And I would sit in the president’s office, and I thought he was my friend.

“And then one time we put out an album, and the same day we dropped an album, [we were competing with] Mariah Carey, Missy Elliott Jay-Z, I was telling them we were gonna lose. But we went up against some of the biggest guys you’ve ever seen in your life. And we lost, and we flopped.”

The South Bronx-native then recalled an instance when he was compared to T.I., who had joined the label in the early 2000s and already sold 2 million copies, while Joe sold 500,000 units of a particular album.

He explained, “Bro, they changed [my] six-story poster to T.I. so fast, right?” Joe recalled after the label president had called him a “failure”. “I remember I went home and I was just looking at the ceiling thinking, ‘You know what, if you go independent and you sell an album, you make $7 profits. If I sold 500,000 records, I would make $3.5 million.’”

Shortly after, Joe made the decision to try to break his contract at that point. So he went back to the office and said, “‘Man, you’re right, I suck,” he recalled. “‘You ain’t gotta worry about me. I’ll never make a hit record again. I’m washed up. You’ll hear me on the old-school at noon. I’m done.’”

Joe said that his strategy eventually paid off and the label agreed to release him. He later dropped his hit single, “Make It Rain,” which sold 4 million units, a feat he claims has the exec, “dying ever since.”

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