Lil Wayne‘s ongoing legal battle against his longtime label Cash Money Records and its co-CEO Bryan “Birdman” Williams took another turn over the weekend, as TMZ reports that Birdman has admitted to spending $70 million in advances from distributor Universal Music Group, money for which Wayne would like to see receipts.
According to legal papers, the site says, Birdman claims to have spent the money on royalty payments, marketing endeavors and recordings costs, providing more than 20,000 pages of documents to support his claims.
But Wayne’s lawyers aren’t buying it, and have responded by saying that none of the 20,000 pages accounts for the $70 million, part of which Wayne claims he is entitled to. In a landmark deal in 1998, Cash Money signed a distribution deal with UMG that included $100 million in advances; a March 2016 court filing made on behalf of Wayne against UMG and SoundExchange noted that $60 million of that has to date been un-recouped.
This latest round of documents is part of Wayne’s ongoing $51 million lawsuit against Birdman and Cash Money, which alleges he’s owed $10 million for an advance to create Tha Carter V, which is still on the shelf, as well as additional royalties from recordings released by Drake on Wayne’s Young Money imprint and various other complaints. The simultaneous lawsuit against UMG was put on holdby a California federal district court in August to allow the Cash Money lawsuit to proceed first.
Reps for Lil Wayne and Cash Money did not return requests for comment as of press time.
SOURCE: www.billboard.com
