A live performance from J. Cole, who’s facing a lawsuit from Cam’ron over ‘Ready ’24.’  Photo Credit: Leo_Visions

Cam’ron is officially suing J. Cole for allegedly failing to honor the terms of a late-2021 verbal agreement centering on “Ready ‘24.”

That effort debuted as part of last year’s Might Delete Later, with Cam’ron featured and credited as a writer. Before that, 2021 had seen the plaintiff contribute vocals to Cole’s “9 5 . s o u t h,” which evidently set the stage for an expanded partnership.

Specifically, Cam’ron is said to have “contributed lyrics to the introduction and the second verse for” Cole’s “Ready ’24,” which the two purportedly recorded during a June 2022 “session at Electric Lady Studios in New York City.”

But the way Cam’ron tells the story, his “Ready ‘24” writing contributions were “expressly conditioned on” having final approval of the resulting recording, receiving an “appropriate credit,” and collaborating with J. Cole down the line.

On the collaboration front, Cole allegedly “agreed to collaborate on a future recording” with Cam’ron or to appear on his podcast, It Is What It Is.

Given the firmly worded lawsuit, it probably won’t come as a surprise that Cole purportedly “refused to honor his agreement to collaborate” on the track or the podcast.

Related discussions occurred in 2022 (“the collaboration never materialized”), the summer of 2023 (Cole allegedly said he’d “agree to appear on the Podcast at a later date”), and into 2024 (“Cole repeatedly stated that he was unavailable to appear on the Podcast”), per the suit.

As described, there’s a bit more to the action than an alleged failure to make good on the purported collaboration commitment. But if the text’s tone is any indication, the complaint may not have seen the light of day had Cole made his way onto It Is What It Is.

In any event, Cam’ron maintains that he “has not been paid any royalties” for “Ready ‘24″ recording-wise or on the compositional side and “is owed at least $500,000.” And with ownership of the work therefore front of mind, the plaintiff says he’s entitled to a piece of the recording, which “is not registered” with the Copyright Office.

“Plaintiff brings this action for a declaratory judgment that the Sound Recording is also a ‘joint work’ under the Copyright Act,” the suit spells out.

Besides J. Cole (who didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment), the complaint names as defendants Cole World and Universal Music Group.