Mariah Carey is reportedly in talks with Def Jam Records CEO Lyor Cohen for a two-album deal valued at $3 million to $5 million per album, according to the New York Post. Cohen was noticeably absent from a press conference on Thursday (January 24) announcing the release of R. Kelly and Jay-Z’s forthcoming Def Jam release, The Best Of Both Worlds.
Earlier this week, Carey officially parted ways with her record label, EMI’s Virgin Records, with a $28 million payoff that ended her multi-album, multimillion-dollar international recording contract. The singer was also able to keep the $21 million paid to her when the Virgin contract was signed in April 2001, and thus gained a total of $49 million from the short-lived deal, which saw the release of only a single album, Glitter. The fallout between Carey and Virgin was largely due to the commercial failure of Glitter, which has sold barely 500,000 copies in the United States.
