theestallion/Instagram/PATexas rapper Megan Thee Stallion has been granted a temporary restraining order against her record label after claiming she was only paid $15,000 despite earning an estimated $7 million in revenue.
Stallion, whose real name is Megan Pete, filed the suit against 1501 Entertainment, alleging the contract she had signed in 2018 was ‘not only entirely unconscionable, but ridiculously so’ because it allows her label to ‘literally do nothing, while at the same time taking for themselves the vast majority of [her] income from all sources.’
The label allegedly pays Pete 40% of the income from her recordings, with the remaining 60% going to 1501, a split the rapper says is well below industry standards.
Pete, who released the platinum-selling single Hot Girl Summer last year, claims she’s only been paid $15,000 by the label after earning more than a billion streams and selling more than 300,000 individual track downloads, which equates to an estimated $7 million.
The rapper also said the contract allows 1501 exclusive rights to control her live performances and touring, while taking 30% of all her touring money as well as 30% of all her merchandising, Billboard reports.
Pete is said to have been made aware of the issues with the contract when she hired a new management team, Roc Nation, last September.
She opened up about the issue on Instagram Live this weekend, saying:
I was like 20, and I didn’t know everything that was in that contract. So when I got with Roc Nation, I got management — real management — and real lawyers.
They were like, ‘Do you know that this is in your contract?’ And I was like, ‘Oh, damn, that’s crazy — no, I didn’t know.’
The Houston artist said she attempted to renegotiate the contract, but ‘it all went bad’ and 1501 allegedly instructed the distributor of Pete’s records ‘not to release or distribute any of her new music’.
On Sunday, March 1, Pete started tweeting ‘#FreeTheeStallion’ and ‘#FreeMeg’ in an effort to rally social media users to support her fight.
— HOT GIRL MEG (@theestallion) March 1, 2020
Pete claims to have been ‘attacked and threatened on social media’ by 1501’s CEO, former Major League Baseball star Carl Crawford, and members of his label since she signed with Roc Nation.
In court papers cited by Billboard, she referred to the posting and distribution of her mug shot from an arrest five years ago, when she was 19, as an example of attempts to hurt her career.
She also alleges a producer associated with 1501 threatened her with physical harm.
Pete filed the suit in an attempt to ensure she was not blocked from releasing new music, and a federal judge granted a temporary restraining order against the label and Crawford on Monday.
The judge ordered 1501 Entertainment ‘to do nothing to prevent the release, distribution, and sale of Pete’s new records’, as well as ‘to refrain from threatening or posting any threatening retaliatory social media posts or threats against Pete’, and ‘to not intentionally falsify, alter, spoil, hide, transfer, or otherwise destroy any documents, evidence or recordings related to Pete in any way’.
Richard Busch, Pete’s attorney, released a statement after the ruling, saying:
We are very happy the court granted our [temporary restraining order] application and thrilled that the world should be able to now hear Megan’s new music on March 6. We will now proceed with the other claims set forth in the petition.
NEW MUSIC WILL BE DROPPING 🙏🏽🔥
— HOT GIRL MEG (@theestallion) March 3, 2020
The rapper is asking a judge to declare the recording contract with 1501 void, and a hearing on whether to extend or terminate the temporary restraining order is taking place on March 13.
CEO Crawford has denied claims he and his 1501 label are trying to prevent Pete from releasing new music.
In an interview with Billboard, Crawford said:
It’s a whole lie. Nothing is true that she said. Me being greedy and taking money from her, that’s crazy. I never tried to take nothing from her. The only thing we ever did was give, give, give.
The CEO claims Pete cut contact with 1501 after signing with Roc Nation, opting not to pay him or the label any of the money she owed. Crawford believes Pete planned to avoid paying him for merchandise and live touring proceeds owed through the terms of their deal so he would renegotiate her contract.
He commented:
It’s a great contract for a first-timer. What contract gives parts of their masters and 40% royalties and all that kind of stuff? Ask Jay-Z to pull one of his artist’s first contracts, and let’s compare it to what Megan got… I guarantee they won’t ever show you that.
When asked to comment on Pete’s claims about being threatened with physical harm, Crawford said he ‘[doesn’t] know what producer could be threatening her’, adding: ‘She just lies so much.’
Crawford went on to call Pete a ‘fraud’ and said he’s ‘here to fight this’.
Thanks to the temporary restraining order, Pete is now free to release new music. The rapper took to Twitter yesterday to confirm the news, writing ‘New music will be dropping’.
Fans can expect to hear new music from Pete on March 6.
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Emily Brown first began delivering important news stories aged just 13, when she launched her career with a paper round. She graduated with a BA Hons in English Language in the Media from Lancaster University, and went on to become a freelance writer and blogger. Emily contributed to The Sunday Times Travel Magazine and Student Problems before becoming a journalist at UNILAD, where she works on breaking news as well as longer form features.