Kanye West has been caught in the middle of yet another legal dispute. This particular one alleges that more than 10 producers still haven’t been paid for their work on Ye and Ty Dolla $ign’s two collaboration albums released this year, “Vultures 1” and “Vultures 2.”
In a statement to Billboard, a music attorney said, “We have clients who’ve produced music on the ‘Vultures’ album(s) and have still not been paid for their services even though both albums have been released. Presently, we have no idea when payment will be made, which is so unfortunate and unfair. You would think Ye would be more sensitive to this issue because he is a producer.”
The main reason these producers haven’t been compensated is that they did not have a signed agreement in place before working with West, making it difficult for them to collect payments from him after the fact. As a result, several attorneys representing many of the unpaid producers have joined forces to fight the difficult battle of getting their clients paid.
West on the other hand is busy cycling through lawyers, and recently switched to his third attorney this year to help clear samples.
More from Billboard:
Some producers who contributed to the album did receive deal offers from Ye’s team this fall. However, those offers were buyouts, according to multiple attorneys, meaning the producer would accept a flat fee and not receive any royalties if the album recouped its costs. Recoupment may be out of reach — as Ty Dolla $ign told Billboard in June, Vultures 1 is “a very expensive album” recorded between Las Vegas, Miami, Los Angeles, Japan, Italy, Saudi Arabia and Dubai. Still, buying out producers in this fashion is atypical, and multiple lawyers for Vultures 1 producers rejected the offers.
One attorney suggested that since the producers don’t have a lot of leverage in the situation, their best recourse may be to sue Ye. But like many other lawsuits against the controversial music figure, they don’t appear to lead to any changes or consequences for the controversial artist.