Jermaine Dupri has a pretty hefty lawsuit on his hands, and it stems from a former business partner who claims he's been shortchanged by the rapper.
Back in 2005, Dupri launched Dieniahmar Music LLC with partner Eddie Weathers, and Weathers now claims that he's lost hundreds of thousands of dollars in royalties since the company began.
Legal documents state that Dupri and Weathers agreed to split profits from the company, which Edwards points out shares a piece of both or their names. "The name of the company was derived from the birth names of Weathers’ and Mauldin’s children Eddie Jr., Shaniah and Kamar," reads the doc.
Dupri signed a co-publishing deal with EMI a year after the company was established, and often did not give Edwards his share of royalties he earned from the partnership between 2006 and 2013. Apparently, Jermaine argued that “he was the sole owner in Dieniahmar when in fact he was not”.
While Edwars did end up getting a check for $275,752.97, which made up for two years of backpay royalties, most of his payments post-2011 either arrived late, at a fraction of the owed total, or simply not at all.
Dupri ended up selling Dieniahmar in 2013, and while Edwards was meant to earn $238,000 from the purchase, he only recieved $10,000.
Edwards is now looking to be paid for his share of the company, as well as the royalties he was never properly compensated for, which totals at $1 Million.
[via]
