Lil Wayne and Birdman End Years-Long Legal Battle Over Drake's Royalties
By Ryan Naumann on July 26, 2019 at 6:09 AM EDT
Lil Wayne and Birdman have agreed to drop their nasty court battle over who gets a cut of Drake’s royalties, as both dropped their suits against the other.
According to court documents obtained by The Blast, Aspire Music Group (where Lil Wayne is a principal) has dropped their lawsuit against Cash Money Records, Birdman and Universal Music. Per their agreement, Cash Money Records also dropped their claims against Lil Wayne’s company.
The Blast
The documents note the parties are voluntarily agreeing to discontinue the case.
Back in 2017, Aspire Music Group, co-founded by Lil Wayne’s ex-manager, Cortez Bryant, sued Cash Money Records and Universal Music accusing them of holding out on royalties owed from Drake’s music. Lil Wayne and Bryant are both principals of Aspire Music.
Aspire said they discovered Drake and claimed to have a deal in place entitling them to 1/3 share of the net profits from Drake’s first six albums, along with a share of the copyrights. The other 2/3 was split between Wayne’s Young Money and Cash Money.
Earlier this year, Birdman’s Cash Money Records counter-sued Bryant’s Aspire Music Group, accusing Bryant and Lil Wayne of conspiring with a lawyer named Ronald Sweeney to allegedly gain a larger share of Drake’s profits.
According to documents, Cash Money claimed Aspire "was simply a shell company,” adding, “There was no business purpose to forming Aspire, other than to siphon profits out of the joint venture and to divert those profits to Sweeney, Bryant, and Carter/ Young Money. Aspire never conducted any business other than getting Drake signed to a record label. Aspire has never signed, nor sought to sign, a single additional artist.”
Cash Money demanded Aspire’s lawsuit against them be dismissed and sought unspecified damages for fraud, aiding and abetting a breach of fiduciary duty and interference with contractual relations.
Lil Wayne denied Birdman’s claim he conspired to concoct a scheme to take a bigger cut of Drake’s music money, saying the allegation made no sense.
