Playboi Carti and Universal Music have been sued by a former collaborator of the rapper, Eric Mercer, who claims he performed on and co-wrote a track on the 2017 album ‘Playboi Carti’, but is yet to be paid any royalties for his contribution to the work.
“Despite the commercial success of the song and the album”, says a lawsuit filed with the courts in California, Mercer has “yet to be compensated for his contributions to the song, and has yet to receive a single dollar, or even an accounting of what is owed to him”.
This is despite an agreement in 2020 in which Mercer was allocated a 5% share of the song copyright in the track he was involved in creating, ‘Kelly K’.
He says that, because he is yet to receive any royalties, he has now rescinded that agreement, which means ‘Kelly K’ was released and continues to be streamed without his consent. Among other things Mercer is suing for copyright infringement, breach of contract and unjust enrichment.
The lawsuit describes Mercer as “a multi-hyphenate singer, songwriter, producer and engineer” who has worked with “several prominent artists and producers”, including Dr Dre, Anderson.Paak, Justin Timberlake, Macklemore and Jake One.
It was a collaboration with Jake One - real name Jacob Dutton - that led to his involvement in ‘Kelly K’. In his lawsuit, Mercer says that he recorded vocals with Dutton which were then used on the Playboi Carti track.
“At no point prior to the release of the song did Mr Mercer transfer any of his rights, including, but not limited to his copyrights, to Dutton or any of the defendants”, the lawsuit adds.
He then says that Playboi Carti, real name Jordan Carter, presented him with a split sheet in July 2019, “in which it was proposed that Mr Mercer would receive a 5% ownership interest in the song in exchange for his contributions to and vocals on the song”. An agreement between Carter and Mercer was then finalised in January 2020. But since then Mercer hasn’t received any royalties or royalty reporting.
Of course, the agreement described in the lawsuit seems to suggest that Mercer was granted a 5% share in the song copyright, with no agreement to pay royalties for his performance on the recording. With Mercer a co-owner of the song copyright, you’d usually expect him or his publisher to directly claim his 5% of the song royalties generated by ‘Kelly K’, usually through the collective licensing system, except in scenarios where a publisher would negotiate a direct deal.
Although Spotify only lists two writers for ‘Kelly K’ - Carter and Joshua Luellen (aka Southside) - the database of US collecting society MLC lists a total of five co-writers, with both Dutton and Mercer listed alongside Carter and Luellen, and fifth collaborator Tomislav Pasanec. All of which suggests that Mercer could have been directly claiming his 5% of money generated by ‘Kelly K’, certainly through the MLC.
Maybe the specific agreement signed with Carter meant that the rapper - or his company, which is also a defendant on the lawsuit - should have been paying Mercer his royalties. But either way, Mercer says that his emails to Carter and Universal Music have gone unanswered.
Carter and Universal’s response to the lawsuit may provide some clarity on all this.