Lyfe Jennings might be indebted $1 million to Sony Music, but claims that his former label also owes fifteen times as much.
The "Must Be Nice" artist was a guest on a recent episode of podcast BagFuel, where he talked about his promotional expenses. Around the 6-minute mark of the video below, Jennings shared that however much the label spent on his music videos, that "they're allowed to recoup half of it."
"They also still own the video forever," he continued. "Like they own one hundred in the video, money's made all the video."
He furthermore explained that, instead of half, Sony Music recouped the entire video's amount. The singer said that he was given a "three-year window" to audit the label, around the time "when all the dirt go on."
"That's when they kill you," he added.
"So then when you finally realize, years later, when you might be having a couple money problems and somebody put in your ear, 'Yo, they weren't supposed to do this and they owe you...' 'Cause Sony really owe me like about $15 million, bro," he explained.
The dollar amount shocked BagFuel hosts Esso World and Hynaken, while Jennings elaborated that he had a clause in his contract that stated that the label couldn't "cross-collateralize."
"Which means that if your third album tank but your first two albums was low, they can recoup the tanking from your third album from your first two," Jennings said. "I didn't have that in my contract but when I looked they had cross-collateralized everything.
The singer then shared that he owes Sony Music one million from his 2004 debut album, Lyfe 268‒192, although he missed the audit window.
"So now they'll be like, 'Yeah, we made some calculation errors, but you didn't catch it in three years, so we don't owe you nothing.'"
While Jennings initially pursued a forensic audit, he decided not to go through with it due to mounting expenses.
"The reason why I didn't do it is because look how these cats play and I respect it," he said. "When we put in to get all the paperwork, no bullshit ,we got a FedEx truck with probably like 40 boxes in it."
He continued, "And if they owe me $15 million it makes financial sense that they can spend $5 million just making this shit go on 80 years. But for me, I only got a certain budget, so I took out–what said in the beginning–I just accepted it, because it is what it is. I don't got the money to fight them, [i'll] be more careful next time.
This isn't the first time this month that Jennings revealed that he's gotten played in the industry. Just two weeks ago, he claimed that NPR Tiny Desk Concerts was uninterested in a performance from him because he wasn't "a big enough celeb."