It's been just over 10 years since Lil Wayne's 'Tha Carter III" rocked the world, but beneath the platinum plaques and Grammy gold, there's a storm a-brewing. Darius "Deezle" Harrison, a Grammy-award-winning producer who worked on some of "Tha Carter III's" biggest tracks, is the latest artist to sue Universal Music Group (UMG). And he is not even asking nicely. He is seeking over $3 million in unpaid royalties that he says have sat collecting dust all these years while UMG has continued to cash in.
Deezle isn't just some producer; he's the man who helped create the foundation that was Wayne's career-defining album and produced fan favorites like "Lollipop," "Mrs. Officer," and "Let the Beat Build." According to the lawsuit in Los Angeles, UMG hasn't written him a check for over a decade or ten years.
The heart of Deezle's claim? He claims he is contractually due 4% for every track on "Tha Carter III" he produced and another 3% for his work on Birdman's "Fast Money" album. Although both projects have undoubtedly turned a hefty profit and reciprocated a few times over, Deezle says UMG suddenly refused to shell out without ever telling him why.
Deezle sued Lil Wayne, Cash Money, and Young Money in 2011 for similar royalty-related issues, but the case was settled in 2012. However, these filings suggest that the money stopped flowing shortly after the ink was dry.
"Plaintiffs have not been provided with statements, have not been paid any producer royalties under the YME producer agreement or the CMR producer agreement for more than 10 years," Deezle's lawyer, Christopher L. Brown, wrote in the suit, as first reported by Billboard.
The suit doesn't just assign blame but shines a light on a larger industry pattern. In 2018, artists such as Salt-N-Pepa sued UMG for unpaid royalties. It sounds like the biggest label in the world already has a line of people knocking on its legal doors.
"Tha Carter III" wasn't just successful but was a cultural earthquake. The album was released on June 10, 2008, and went to No. 1 on the Billboard 200, selling over a million copies in its first week and becoming 6x platinum. You can't fathom that kind of number without Deezle's production fingerprints all over it.
So now, more than a decade later, Deezle wants what he feels he's owed, and he won't keep his mouth shut about it. While the beat marches on in the industry's courtrooms, the fight for fair pay in the music business is not over yet.
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