Artist Interviews
Lyfe Jennings Claims Sony Music Owes Him Millions in Unpaid Royalties
On the BagFuel podcast, the “Must Be Nice” singer opened up about his past business dealings with Sony Music.
R&B singer Lyfe Jennings is making headlines after revealing that he believes Sony Music owes him millions of dollars in unpaid royalties. During an appearance on the BagFuel podcast, the “Must Be Nice” artist opened up about his experience with the label and how he feels Sony Music mishandled his contract and promotional expenses.
Jennings explained that while the label covered costs for his music videos, they were allowed to recoup half of those expenses. “They also still own the video forever,” he added, highlighting that Sony Music had full control over the profits generated from his music videos. Despite this, Jennings claims he was left out of the financial gains, and the label recouped all of the money from his entire music video portfolio.
According to Jennings, Sony Music was able to legally deduct all costs from his earnings, and he had a “three-year window” to audit the label’s financial practices. Unfortunately, he claims that by the time he became aware of the discrepancies, it was too late.
“So then when you finally realize, years later, when you might be having a couple of money problems… Sony really owes me like about $15 million, bro,” he revealed.
One of the major issues for Jennings was the “cross-collateralization” of his music sales. He explained that if his third album didn’t perform well, Sony could recoup those losses from the earnings of his first two albums. While Jennings claims this wasn’t part of his original contract, he later discovered that it was a practice the label had implemented without his knowledge.
In addition to the alleged $15 million in unpaid royalties, Jennings revealed that Sony Music also owes him $1 million from his 2004 debut album, Lyfe 268-192. However, when he attempted to audit the label, he found the process to be overwhelming and costly. “When we put in to get all the paperwork, no bulls**t, we got a FedEx truck with probably like 40 boxes in it,” he said. “If they owe me $15 million, it makes financial sense that they can spend $5 million just making this st go on 80 years. But for me, I only got a certain budget.”
Jennings ultimately decided not to pursue further action due to the high costs involved, admitting that he couldn’t afford to fight a prolonged legal battle.
“I don’t got the money to fight them, I’ll be more careful next time,” he said.
The singer’s revelation has sparked discussions about the exploitation of artists by record labels and the challenges musicians face when navigating contracts that may not always be in their best interest.
