Jermaine Dupri Sues Sony Music Over Millions in Unpaid Royalties

Jermaine Dupri. Photo Credit: Eva Rinaldi

Three decades and “at least seven” contracts later, Jermaine Dupri is suing Sony Music for allegedly failing to pay north of $18 million in owed royalties due to a combination of “reporting errors” and “contemptuous accounting practices.”

Dupri and So So Def Recordings submitted the missing-royalties suit to a New York federal court, naming Sony Music Entertainment (SME) as the lone defendant. Clocking in at 13 pages, the complaint is, at the top level, straightforward enough: The major label allegedly failed to cough up a huge pile of royalties across a years-long stretch.

Unsurprisingly, given the plural contracts in play, the action is a bit more complicated beneath the surface. But the short version is that beginning in 1992, Sony Music is said to have tapped Dupri’s So So Def to discover and sign talent that ultimately included the likes of Xscape and Whodini.

Early pacts along these lines purportedly made way for a straight 50/50 JV between the major and So So Def, which served as the professional home of Bow Wow, Kris Kross, Jagged Edge, and others. From there, a buyout materialized, as did several eventually terminated Arista agreements, per the legal text.

Meanwhile, various contracts also entitled Dupri, the son of former Columbia exec Michael Mauldin, to collect distinct royalties for his solo, production, and remixing work, according to the suit.

Fast forward to 2023, when Dupri “began to suspect that SME had not paid all of the royalites [sic] due” to him “for multiple releases over a substantial period of time.”

Partially attributable to the presence of previously unreported royalties in “new and amended” statements, the hunch set the stage for a 2025 audit performed by Gelfand, Rennert & Feldman. And evidently, with a late-2025 tolling agreement having failed to deliver a resolution, the audit then prompted the complaint.

In terms of specific underpayment allegations, Dupri maintains that prior to 2023, Sony Music “never reported producer/override royalties” from Kris Kross’ first two albums, allegedly owing a cool $2.2 million as a result.

Similarly, 2023 statements are said to have revealed “that SME was now reporting previously unreported royalties” for production work on Jagged Edge’s A Jagged Era. But as “the sales periods for the previously unreported royalties only go back as far as 2007,” the plaintiff is allegedly owed “millions of dollars.”

“SME kept Kriss [sic] Kross royalites [sic] in a separate accounting system for which Plaintiff had no access and did not pay,” another relevant line reads.

Likewise factoring into the showdown are royalties from Dupri’s solo projects (including collaborations with Usher and more) as well as unrecouped balances, which Sony Music and the other majors previously wiped away for eligible legacy artists in any event.

“SME failed to remit royalty payments to So-So Def by incorrectly cross-collateralizing unrecouped account balances against royalties otherwise payable to So-So Def, including Dupri’s solo album releases and compilation albums,” the suit claims.

All told, the filing parties are seeking at least $18 million in royalties, and the suit mentions Dupri’s purportedly being “due in excess of $10,000,000 in interest payments.”

Separately, Chad Hugo is still spearheading an unpaid-royalties action against Pharrell Williams, who was only served in late May. And while the development flew under the media radar, May also saw The Cranberries and Universal Music settle a different royalties dispute.