Rapper K.O and Cashtime Life Entertainment CEO and co-founder Thabiso Khati have gone their separate ways after seven years working together.

They have confirmed the separation, noting that it was amicable, but stating different reasons.

K.O said: "I have decided that I had outgrown the partnership. When he came on board he found me in charge of everything at Cashtime, including managing Teargas.

"He came in to help with that [management of artists], and I took the back seat."

K.O said the hip-hop stable had lost many artists due to Khati's way of doing business.

"When he started a lot of people could not understand his way of [doing] business because he was all about business. He changed a few things and that made a lot of people uneasy, and as a result many people left," he said.

But the show goes on and the rapper will be at the forefront of running the business again.

Speaking to Sowetan following the announcement of his departure, Khati said his focus would now be on his new business.

"We are officially opening our doors at the beginning of July. We already have major artists we are working with like Yung Swiss and DJ Vigilante," said Khati.

"I am still very close to K.O and I believe he has reached his independence level as an artist. He is a businessman now, so he knows a lot of things."

Khati said that he was not aware of any artist that left the stable on his accord.

"We agreed [with K.O] to release Nomuzi due to some issues we had which I don't want to go into and, with Kid X, he called me and said he wanted to be released and we agreed."

He added that he was "sure that some of them [artists] might say whatever they want to say but they never said it to my face".