Artist News

DMX’s family deny master rights sale, warn fans of funeral fundraising scams

By Andy Malt | Published on Tuesday 13 April 2021

The family of DMX have issued a statement following a report that Jay-Z and Beyonce had bought the late rapper’s master rights, ie the rights in all his recordings. They also warned fans against buying merch or donating money to people claiming to be raising money for his funeral.

“There have been a few rumours following our loved one, Earl Simmons’, passing that we’d like to clear up”, the family say. “No one has bought Earl’s masters. Additionally, we are not selling any merch or raising money for Earl’s funeral. If anyone is requesting money for his funeral please be aware the person is a scammer. We will keep the public posted on funeral/memorial service arrangements”.

The rumour that Jay-Z and Beyonce were planning to buy DMX’s master rights for $10 million so that they could donate them to his children seemingly came from a Twitter user with no obvious links to anyone involved. Nonetheless, the claims spread far enough that the family felt the need to respond.

No single entity owns DMX’s masters, the rapper having worked with a number of labels during his career, including Universal Music’s Def Jam, to which he returned last year having left in 2003 after his fifth album, ‘Grand Champ’. That would make it difficult for the Carters to simply buy them all up.

Also, it’s not likely that either buyers or sellers would put a price on the rapper’s catalogue within hours of his death – its value possibly being more than $10 million prior to his passing, and likely to increase after. As well as that, the tweet claimed that the purchase was for the benefit of DMX’s “seventeen children”, which is two more children than he’s believed to have had.

So, the moral of the story is, don’t believe every random tweet you read. Or any tweet. Don’t read tweets, that’s my advice.

DMX, of course, died on Friday, a week after falling into a coma as a result of a heart attack.