Producers send out tracks to many different A&R's, artists, etc. JR likes to send out tracks with Kingston already on the hook.
Atlantic wanted that track for Flo, but they slept, Carson snatched it up.
Beluga Heights is a co-venture with Epic Records. Epic makes the final decisions. We wanted Sean to be on it, because it should have been a hit and we want Sean to have street edge as well. Epic wanted Sean to maintain his "Beautiful Girls" image, which we didn't want.
Finally after a while, Epic gave in (since most of the hooks Sean does are more hip-hopish) cleared Sean, and Capitol tried to regain the momentum that was lost when they were forced to stop the "leak" to radio. It's hard enough getting spins for a single, 10x harder to tell a radio station to stop playing, and then give them an OK 4 weeks later, thinking they will start spinning it again.
Anyone can take any beat and rap to it, I can take a old Dr. Dre beat and spit on it right now. But the right to distribute it on an album and make money off it must be paid for and you have to have contracts for it.