Lil Wayne Producer Deezle Sues UMG Over Missing Royalties

Lil Wayne producer Deezle (actual identify Darius Harrison) is suing Universal Music for allegedly failing to pay him thousands and thousands in due royalties from Tha Carter III (2008) and extra.

Deezle and his Drum Major Music Entertainment firm only recently submitted the multifaceted lawsuit to a New York federal courtroom. This time round, Universal Music Group (UMG) is the one defendant.

14 years again, nevertheless, Deezle levied the same motion towards Lil Wayne himself; the concerned events settled in 2012. Despite the decision – extra on this in a second – the producer is evidently unready to place his royalty qualms within the rearview.

As recapped within the newly filed lawsuit, after scoring a 2004 Cash Money Records producer deal and producing “Weezy Baby” on Tha Carter II (2005), Deezle went on to ink a producer settlement with Lil Wayne-founded Young Money Entertainment in late 2007.

Under the newer contract, the producer then contributed to 6 Tha Carter III tracks, amongst them “Lollipop.”

Per the plaintiffs, Young Money agreed to supply “no less than semi-annual accounting statements reflecting all royalties accrued” as a part of the tie-up. Plus, Young Money’s distributor, Cash Money, was mentioned to be compelled to account to the submitting events “directly and at the same time it” accounted to Young Money.

In phrases of the place Universal Music matches into the image, acknowledged concisely, the foremost has lengthy dealt with Cash Money’s distribution. And Lil Wayne reportedly offered the Young Money catalog to UMG for $100 million in 2020.

Consequently, Young Money (in addition to Cash Money and, in flip, UMG) is allegedly compelled to ahead to Deezle and his firm the suitable “4 percent royalty rate” on the above-outlined Tha Carter III efforts.

Unsurprisingly, in gentle of the just-levied grievance, these funds have purportedly failed to return via.

“In a shocking, willful and intentional breach of the YME Producer Agreement,” the plaintiffs summed up, “YME failed to [account to] Harrison pursuant to the YME Producer Agreement and UMG has breached the agreement by failing to report and pay royalites [sic] for over a decade.”

Additionally, concerning the aforesaid 2004 Cash Money producer pact, Deezle has pointed to allegedly unpaid royalties for his six credit on Birdman’s Fast Money (2005), in addition to the “Shorty Bounce” observe Lil Wayne recorded for The Longest Yard.

Back to the beforehand highlighted settlement, Universal Music is alleged to have began “sending royalty statements to” Deezle after the prior swimsuit’s 2012 decision. But the foremost allegedly “ceased sending” these statements “[a]lmost immediately” thereafter.

“UMG administers the payments to producers, artists and songwriters relating to the masters at issue and has failed to pay Plaintiffs,” the submitting events summed up. “Plaintiffs have not been paid any producer royalites [sic] associated with the YME Producer Agreement or CMR Producer Agreement for over a decade.”

While this swimsuit’s timing is more likely to take heart stage because the authorized battle performs out, Deezle is in search of at the least $6 million in damages for the allegedly lacking royalties. And within the greater image, the producer has joined the likes of Iggy Azalea and Limp Bizkit in formally accusing the foremost of failing to pay royalties.