90’s hip-hop veterans and Golden Era MCs #BlackSheep are leading the charge against a massive class action lawsuit against #UniversalMusicGroup
According to reports, Black Sheep, comprised of Andres “Dres” Titus and William “Mista Lawnge” McLean, filed the lawsuit over unpaid royalties and also alleged that the record company cut a side deal with Spotify.
Rolling Stone reports that “The Choice Is Yours” hitmakers are accusing UMG of owing more than $750 million to them and their entire roster of talent for allegedly breaching contracts after engaging in a “sweetheart” deal with Spotify.
In the lawsuit, Black Sheep alleges that Universal Music Group received money and company stock from the digital service provider in exchange for music from their roster of talent while only counting the cash part of the deal when it was time to distribute royalty payments.
Part of the lawsuit states, “In the mid-2000s, Universal struck an undisclosed, sweetheart deal with Spotify whereby Universal agreed to accept substantially lower royalty payments on artists’ behalf in exchange for equity stake in Spotify – then a fledgling streaming service.”
“Yet rather than distribute to artists their 50 percent of Spotify stock or pay artists their true and accurate royalty payments, for years Universal shortchanged artists and deprived plaintiffs and class members of the full royalty payments they were owed under Universal’s contract.”
The lawsuit further reads, “For approximately a decade, Universal omitted from the royalty statements Universal issued to plaintiffs that it had received Spotify stock in connection with the ‘use or exploitation’ of Black Sheep recordings.”
Black Sheep was signed to a former subsidiary of UMG, Polygram Records. They released the gold selling album “A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing” in 1991 followed by 1994’s “Non-Fiction.”
UMG released a statement calling the allegations and lawsuit “false and absurd.”
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