Producer on Lil Wayne’s ‘Tha Carter III’ Settles UMG Royalties Lawsuit

A producer on Lil Wayne’s hit 2008 album Tha Carter III has reached a royalties settlement with Universal Music Group (UMG).

Darius “Deezle” Harrison sued UMG earlier this year, claiming the music giant owed him more than a decade’s worth of performance royalties for his work on Tha Carter III, which hit No. 1 on the Billboard 200 in 2008. Harrison helped produce six tracks on the album, including the Billboard Hot 100 chart-topper “Lollipop.” His lawsuit sought more than $3 million in supposedly unpaid royalties from UMG.

Now, a Friday (Sept. 5) court filing from his attorney, Christopher Brown, says a settlement has been reached, though numbers and other deal terms are not disclosed.

Brown and UMG did not immediately return inquiries from Billboard about the settlement on Monday (Sept. 8). Reps for Wayne, who is not named in this lawsuit, also did not return a request for comment.

Harrison, who has two Grammy Awards for his work on Tha Carter III, has spent years fighting in court over album payments. He claims that under a producer agreement with Wayne’s Young Money Entertainment, the label’s parent Cash Money Records (a division of UMG) is supposed to pay him a 4% royalty rate for his songs from Tha Carter III.

The producer also alleges that Cash Money owes him a 3% royalty rate for various other songs he helped make for the label, including six tracks off the 2005 Birdman album Fast Money.

Harrison first brought a federal lawsuit in 2011 against Wayne (Dwayne Michael Carter Jr.), Young Money and Cash Money, claiming he’d been underpaid. That case settled confidentially in 2012.

This past May, Harrison sued once again, alleging he was still being deprived of full royalties. This time, he sued only UMG, not Wayne, claiming the company “has simply taken advantage of Harrison’s hard work and skill as a producer” without adequate compensation.