T.I. has officially filed a lawsuit against Cinq Music, asserting that the independent record label and publisher is failing to honor a 2017 contract clause. The agreement, which was intended to provide the Atlanta-based rapper with the option to buy back his master recordings, has become the center of a heated legal dispute.
According to reports, the legal action stems from a disagreement over the valuation of the catalog. The rapper, born Clifford Harris, claims that Cinq Music is “artificially inflating” the price of the buyback to prevent him from reclaiming his work. While the original agreement reportedly set the buyback price at approximately $3 million, T.I. alleges that the label is now demanding $52 million.
“Cinq regretted that it had agreed to the [terms], and, therefore […] did everything it could to frustrate [Harris’] efforts to complete the purchase,” the rapper’s attorney, Robert Jacobs, stated in the court filing. The suit further claims that the label manipulated royalty deductions to justify the inflated valuation.
In response to the allegations, a spokesperson for Cinq Music released a statement to XXL, maintaining the company’s commitment to fairness. “Cinq Music believes in integrity and fairness. We work across the board to foster creativity and ensure our artists are compensated equitably. At the same time, we disagree with the points made by the opposing party as stated in the article. In our opinion, the other side is making a push for Cinq to accept a valuation which is clearly off-base. We will respond through the appropriate legal channels, and continue to seek an agreement fair to all parties.”
The catalog in question includes several of the rapper’s most commercially successful albums from his tenure with Atlantic Records, such as King, T.I. vs. TIP, and Paper Trail. As the legal battle unfolds, the artist continues to prepare for the release of his twelfth and final studio album, Kill The King, which is preceded by the Pharrell-produced single, “Let ‘Em Know.”
