Cash Money Sued for Drake Profits Amid Multi-Year Legal Saga

How Drake came up in the music business has long been a matter of legal dispute. This week, Aspire Music Group—a label purporting to have signed Drake in 2008—filed a lawsuit against Cash Money for its allegedly unpaid share of profits from recordings by the Toronto rapper. It is the latest in a string of lawsuits regarding Drake profits that involves Aspire.

According to a copy of the complaint obtained by Pitchfork, Aspire alleges that Drake signed an exclusive recording deal with the label in December 2008. The next year, Aspire signed another deal with Cash Money that would give Aspire one-third of the profits from any “commercial exploitation” of Drake recordings, according to the complaint. Aspire now asserts that it wants Cash Money to give a full accounting of Drake earnings and to pay Aspire’s share of revenues, plus damages.

Here’s where things get a bit more complicated. Aspire’s suit—filed January 11 in the New York State Supreme Court—is related to multiple previous lawsuits: In 2012, James “Jas” Prince filed a lawsuit in New York state court claiming he discovered Drake, and alleging Aspire cut him out of the profits he was owed. (That case is ongoing.) Like the latest suit, Prince acknowledges the alleged 33 percent deal that Aspire and Cash Money struck in 2009. Prince’s multiple suits involve a 22 percent cut of Aspire’s alleged 33 percent, which he says he has never been paid. In the case against Aspire, he has been waiting for Aspire to sue Cash Money, his lawyer Jethro Eisenstein told Pitchfork. And now that’s happening.

In yet another ongoing case, Prince separately sued Aspire co-owner Derrick Lawrence and his On the Road company for Drake profits. Lawrence is scheduled for an appearance in New York court on January 25. Lawyers for Bryant, Aspire, Lawrence, and Cash Money, and spokespeople for Drake and Warner, all either didn’t immediately respond to Pitchfork’s requests for comment or declined to comment.

Find the full complaint below, and read “A Brief History of Cash Money Artists Suing Cash Money.”

 

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