Lil Wayne has reportedly sold his masters to Universal Music Group for $100 million.
This information has come to light as a result of a lawsuit that Wayne’s former manager Ronald Sweeney has brought to court for $20 million. TMZ reports that Ronald Sweeney claims Wayne hired him in 2005 to help renegotiate his deal with Birdman and his company, Cash Money.
Wayne of course had a legal showdown with Cash Money over the last few years but then settled the lawsuit in May 2018, but Sweeney now claims he did not get paid what he deserved. In the suit filed by attorney Ed McPherson, Sweeney says back in May 2018, Weezy asked him to fire Cortez Bryant (Weezy’s former manager) over a conflict of interest in a legal dispute involving Drake and Cash Money. Sweeney did that and took over Bryant’s duties, even getting Wayne to raise his commission from 10 to 17 percent. But later, Mack Maine and Cortez Bryant allegedly “conspired to drive a wedge between Wayne and Sweeney.”
In the lawsuit, Sweeney mentions something interesting: Lil Wayne sold his masters to Universal Music Group for more than $100 million this past June. He is not asking for anything out of the deal but brings that up to prove that Wayne has the money to pay him. This deal has, of course, not been made public by either Wayne or UMG.
Weezy has not commented on the matter yet but interestingly, Wayne had also sued Ronald Sweeney for $20 million last year for charging him 10% attorney commission instead of the industry practice of 5%.
Lil Wayne recently dropped the music video for his song ‘Something Different’ from his No Ceilings 3 mixtape.