Last year, Lil Wayne filed a lawsuit against his label, Cash Money, for $51 million, and now he’s going after CM’s parent company, Universal Music Group.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Tunechi filed suit on Monday in California, claiming that he hasn’t been paid properly for profits from discovering and signing artists like Drake, Nicki Minaj, andTyga to his label, Young Money, which is a subsidiary of Cash Money and Universal.
The suit alleges that Universal instead has used those earnings to repay itself for a previous $100 million advance to Cash Money: “With Universal’s knowledge of Lil Wayne’s rights to partial ownership and profits from those artists, Universal and Cash Money entered into a series of agreements which, among other things, diverted Lil Wayne’s substantial profits to repay debts of Cash Money,” the suit claims. “As a result, 100% of the profits that should have been paid to Lil Wayne as a result of his ownership of Drake, Nicki Minaj and Tyga records have been seized by Universal to repay debts that were neither incurred by nor were the obligations of Lil Wayne.”
Wayne’s attorney, Howard E. King, echoed that in a statement. “Universal should be grateful and respectful to Lil Wayne for the millions of dollars in distribution fees and profits they have earned on the artists he brought to the company, instead of seizing all of his profits on those artists in a desperate attempt to recoup the tens of millions of dollars they are owed by Cash Money Records,” he said.
Universal, though, denies any wrongdoing.
“It should be no surprise that we learned of the lawyer’s complaint through the news media,” a spokesman for the label told THR. “We don’t intend to dignify this with further public comment except to say that we will vigorously contest it and that the merits of our case will carry the day.”