Lil Wayne continues to butt heads with his record label. The rapper has filed a $51m lawsuit against Cash Money records, and label CEO Bryan “Birdman” Williams, according to celebrity news site TMZ.
Wayne claims he has not been paid a multimillion-dollar advance for recording his much-delayed album Tha Carter V and has taken the matter to court as a result, TMZ reports. He wishes to leave the label, and to potentially take artists Nicki Minaj and Drake – signed to his Young Money imprint – along with him.
Unnamed sources have told TMZ that Wayne was due an $8m advance for the album. Initial reports from Billboard and TMZ stated Wayne was likely to sue for this amount, before the $51m figure surfaced in TMZ’s latest story.
This wouldn’t be the first sign of a growing rift between the rapper, signed to Cash Money records as a teenager, and his label. Towards the end of 2014, Wayne took to Twitter to voice his frustrations about the The Carter V’s delayed release.
To all my fans, I want u to know that my album won't and hasn't been released bekuz Baby & Cash Money Rec. refuse to release it.
— Lil Wayne WEEZY F (@LilTunechi) December 4, 2014
I am a prisoner and so is my creativity Again,I am truly sorry and I don't blame ya if ya fed up with waiting 4 me & this album. But thk u
— Lil Wayne WEEZY F (@LilTunechi) December 4, 2014
“I want off this label and nothing to do with these people but unfortunately it ain’t that easy,” Wayne also tweeted, on 4 December 2014. Tha Carter V had been originally due out in 2013, then was later pushed to an 8 December UK release date and 9 December release in the US, before failing to materialise entirely.
Though unable to release an official album, Wayne dropped a mixtape entitled Sorry 4 the Wait 2 on 20 January and used the opportunity to air some of his grievances in song. Mixtape song CoCo alludes to taking Nicki Minaj and Drake off the label, with Wayne rapping: “I ain’t trippin’ / I got Barbie, I got Drake too.”
The Carter V would be the second album on Wayne’s 2012 four-album deal with Cash Money, following 2013’s I Am Not a Human Being II.
