Ransom is having the best year of his career. 

In August, the Jersey City native released what he likes to call his “first real project,” The Price of Clarity. His latest solo album holds 17 tracks featuring standout collaborations with Lloyd Banks, Freeway, Young Chris, Nick Grant, and more. Ransom has been dropping music since the early 2000s, but this time he debuted his album exclusively on Lutely, a rising direct-to-consumer platform that’s quickly becoming a vital tool for independent artists. He announced the album would drop on August 19, then surprised fans by uploading an exclusive version to Lutely a week before the original LP became available on all digital streaming platforms.

“It’s that flexibility, man,” Ransom tells iHeartRadio. “You get to do a lot of things. I like to liken it to — and I say this to other independent artists when they’re thinking about dropping something like this — I tell them it’s like a movie. You want people to go to the theaters to watch the movie first and then let it come on streaming platforms. You get your Netflix and your Hulu after you go to the theater. So Lutely is the theater. Come experience the movie the way you’re supposed to experience it, and then it’ll hit your Netflix whenever the artist chooses to.”