Lil Wayne Sued Birdman For $51 Million In Federal Court

Added: 2026-05-19

[00:00:00]Urban handed a nine-year-old boy a contract and 20 years later used it to take $51 million from him in federal court. His name was Dwayne Michael Carter Jr. He was 9 years old when he walked into cash money records for the first time. He could not vote. He could not drive. He could not sign a legal document on his own. But Burman had him sign anyway. And that contract, the one a child put his name on, became the weapon that would be used against him for the next two decades. Today, I am going to show you the actual federal complaint. the real case number, the real dollar amounts. And I'm going to show you exactly how a record label used a childhood agreement to trap one of the most successful rappers in history inside a deal he could not escape. This is not a rumor. This went to federal court. And what that complaint reveals will change how you see the music industry forever. The boy who signed his life away. Dwayne Michael Carter Jr.

[00:00:46]grew up in Holly Grove. That is a neighborhood in New Orleans, Louisiana.

[00:00:50]It is not a neighborhood people move to.

[00:00:52]It is a neighborhood people try to get out of. His father left when he was two years old. His mother raised him alone.

[00:00:58]And by the time he was nine years old, he had already decided that music was the only door he could see. That is when he met Brian Williams, the man the world would come to know as Birdman. Baby, the man who would call himself Wayne's father. Cash Money Records in 1991 was not what people think it was. It was not a powerful label with lawyers and accountants and corporate offices. It was a small New Orleans operation run by two brothers, Brian Williams and Ronald Slim Williams. They were pressing records out of the city and selling them out of car trunks. They had hustle. They had connections in the streets, but they did not have a superstar yet. Wayne was 9 years old when Birdman first brought him into that world. His mother was not comfortable with it. She knew what kind of men ran those streets. She was cautious. But Wayne kept going back. He would call the cash money office constantly. He would rap into the phone.

[00:01:45]He wanted in so badly that Birdman eventually could not ignore him. Here's what most people do not know. A 9-year-old child in the United States cannot legally enter into a binding contract. The law calls it lack of capacity. A minor does not have the legal ability to understand the full consequences of a contractual agreement.

[00:02:02]That is why contracts signed by children are called voidable, meaning a court can throw them out when the child becomes an adult. That protection exists specifically to stop adults from taking advantage of children who do not know what they are agreeing to. But Wayne did not void that agreement when he turned 18. He did not walk away. By then, Cash Money had become his entire world.

[00:02:20]Bourbon had become his father figure.

[00:02:22]The label had become his family. And he kept recording. He kept delivering. He kept building. On November 1st, 1998, Wayne signed the agreement that would define the next two decades of his life.

[00:02:32]The 1998 recording agreement. That is a specific name used in the federal complaint filed in January 2015. That document required Wayne to provide exclusive recording services to Cash Money. Every song, every album, every collaboration, it all belonged to them first. Cash Money agreed in return to render accountings and pay royalties to Carter. They agreed to pay him on a schedule. They agreed to share profits.

[00:02:54]They agreed to protect his work. What Cash Money actually did and what did not happen is a different story entirely.

[00:03:01]But what matters right now is what that 1998 contract built. It built that Carter series. It built Young Money Entertainment. It built the platform that launched Dre. That launched Nicki Minaj. That launched Tiger. Every single one of those careers ran through a deal that started with a nine-year-old boy picking up the phone and rapping into it because he had nothing else and nowhere else to go. Burman did not just sign a rapper in 1998. He signed the engine that would power Cash Money Records for the next 20 years. And he signed it with a child who had no lawyer, no parent in the room, no one explaining what exclusive recording services meant for the rest of his life. So, here is the question going into what happened next.

[00:03:34]If Wayne built everything, if every dollar that came out of Cash Money in the 2000s had Wayne's voice on it, then where did all that money actually go?

[00:03:41]The >> trap closes.

[00:03:43]>> By 2003, Wayne was no longer just a rapper on Cash Money. He was the foundation of the entire operation. And Birdman knew it. So on February 20th, 2003, they signed a second agreement, the 2003 label agreement. This one created the Young Money label joint venture, a partnership, 51% for Cash Money, 49% for Wayne on paper. Wayne now had a stake in everything his artist earned. Drake, Nicki Minaj, Taigga, every name that came through Young Money was supposed to generate income that flowed back to Wayne through that 49% ownership. That is what the agreement said. What Cash Money actually did is what ended up in a federal complaint.

[00:04:21]Here's what the complaint filed on January 28th, 2015. Case number 15 CI614 in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York says happened. Cash money failed to pay Wayne the monthly payments of net profits they were contractually required to make.

[00:04:37]They failed to make the required quarterly payments of $200,000. They failed to maintain the $1 million escro account that existed specifically to fund Young Money's recording and overhead costs. And when it came to Drake, one of the bestselling recording artists in the world, Cash Money failed to provide a single accounting to Young Money. Not one. Despite Drake generating hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue, Wayne never saw his share. But the moment that broke everything was Th Carter 5. Wayne had been working on that album for years. It was his statement, his masterpiece, his exit. In December 2014, he delivered the finished album to Cash Money. He fulfilled his contractual obligation. The album was done and Cash Money refused to release it. They also refused to pay him. The contract required an $8 million advance. When Wayne delivered a completed album, Cash Money did not pay it. They held the music hostage and they held the money.

[00:05:25]Wayne was sitting on a finished album that the world was waiting for and he could not touch it. On December 4th, 2014, Wayne went to Twitter and he wrote words that stopped the entire hip-hop world. He said, "To all my fans, I want you to know that my album will not be released because Baby and Cash Money refused to release it. I want off this label and nothing to do with these people. But unfortunately, it is not that easy. I am a prisoner and so is my creativity." That was not a rap lyric.

[00:05:51]That was a man telling the world that the contract he signed, the one that started when he was 9 years old, had become a cage. 7 weeks later, and on January 28th, 2015, Wayne filed the federal complaint. And this is what that document looks like. This is the actual complaint filed January 28th, 2015 in the United States District Court, Southern District of New York. This is the actual complaint filed January 28th, 2015 in the United States District Court, Southern District of New York.

[00:06:18]Look at the names. Young Money Entertainment, Dwayne Michael Carter Jr., that is Lil Wayne's legal name against Cash Money Records. This is not a rumor. This is not a story. This went to federal court. Look at the names.

[00:06:30]Young Money Entertainment, Dwayne Michael Carter Jr., that is Lil Wayne's legal name against Cash Money Records.

[00:06:36]This is not a rumor. This is not a story. This went to federal court. The complaint was 21 pages long. It named every specific breach, every missing payment, every royalty that was taken and never returned. And at the bottom of the civil cover sheet in the demand section, one number, $51 million. That is what 20 years of work inside a contract signed by a child was worth when it finally went in front of a judge. So now you know what Wayne was owed. You know what Cash Money took. But here is what nobody talks about. What did the court actually find when it looked inside Cash Money's books? And what did Wayne say on national television when they asked him if he would ever forgive Birdman? What the court found on September 26th, 2016, a federal judge made a ruling that nobody in the music industry wanted to talk about. The judge ordered Bergman to detail exactly how he spent $100 million. That was the advanced Cash Money had received, $100 million from Universal Music Group. The judge looked at the complaint. He looked at the numbers and he said, "Show me where the money went." That order was a legal earthquake. Because what Wayne's complaint had revealed was not just missing royalty payments. It was something far more serious. Cash Money had been registering the copyright on Wayne's sound recording solely in Cash Money's name. Not jointly, not 51 to 49 as the agreement required. Solely in Cash Money's name. That means every song Wayne recorded, every album, every track that generated streaming revenue, licensing revenue, sync revenue was registered as if Wayne had nothing to do with creating it. The complaint specifically named the album I am not a human being too. That album was registered solely in the name of Cash Money Records Incorporated. Wayne's name was not on the copyright. The man who made the music did not legally own a single piece of it on paper. Here is the teaching moment. Copyright registration is not just paperwork. It determines who gets paid when a song is used in a film.

[00:08:17]Who gets paid when a brand licenses a track for a commercial? Who gets paid when a streaming platform pays out mechanical royalties. When your name is not on the copyright, you are invisible to every system that distributes that money. Cash Money did not just take Wayne's royalties. They erased him from the legal ownership of his own work. And while all of this was happening in court, Wayne was sitting on national television being asked one simple question. Here is Lil Wayne sitting on Fox Sports Undisputed September 13th, 2016 being asked directly about Birdman.

[00:08:45]Watch what he says.

[00:08:46]>> Too blessed.

[00:08:47]>> So, can you see yourself working with him again? If he if he if he as we say if we make the money right, can you work with him again?

[00:08:56]>> No, sir.

[00:08:58]>> So, you looking for your payday and you moving on?

[00:09:00]>> Yes, sir. M >> and is that that's all this is about?

[00:09:04]There's nothing beyond that.

[00:09:06]>> Nothing beyond that. Give me mine and I walk off free smiling.

[00:09:11]>> No sir, give me mine and I walk off free smiling. That is not anger. That is not desperation. That is a man who has been through a federal lawsuit, a blocked album, 20 years of missing payment system. Then he has reduced it all down to one sentence. Give me mine. That is all he wanted. Not revenge, not an apology, just what was his. Now here is my opinion. And I want you to really think about this. Bergman did not make a mistake with that 1998 contract. He made an investment. He found a 9-year-old boy with no father and no protection. He built a relationship so deep that Wayne called him daddy for 20 years. And then he used that relationship and that contract to retain control over everything Wayne built even when Wayne tried to leave. That is not a music industry accident. That is a system. And it worked exactly as designed until a federal judge forced the books open. In June 2018, the lawsuit was settled. The exact terms were never made fully public, but what happened immediately after told the whole story that Carter 5 was released on September 28th, 2018, 4 years after Wayne delivered the finished album, 4 years after Cash Money locked it in a vault. And on the night it finally dropped, Wayne sat down and spoke. Here is Lil Wayne, the night Carter 5 finally dropped. After four years of being locked down, after the lawsuit, after everything, hear how he sounds. had no idea to be this way. I thought I had a few people waiting for it to hear it. I didn't know I had the world waiting to hear it. I appreciate y'all.

[00:10:35]>> He did not know the world was waiting.

[00:10:37]That is what he said. The man who built one of the most anticipated albums in hip hop history did not know the world was waiting to hear it because for 4 years, nobody let him find out. In January 2015, a federal court in the Southern District of New York received a 21page complaint filed by Dwayne Michael Carter Jr. against Cash Money Records Incorporated. Case number 1 15 CV0000614 seeking $51 million in damages for breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty, and the fraudulent registration of his sound recordings solely in the name of his label. The case settled in June 2018. Wayne got his masters back. The album dropped. The number on that civil cover sheet, $51 million, was the price of a contract signed by a child who had no lawyer, no father, and no one in that room to tell him what he was giving away. And here is the question I want to leave you with. If the most famous rapper in the world with the most loyal fan base in hip-hop history could be trapped inside a childhood contract for 20 years and still almost lose everything. What does that tell you about every other artist sitting in a label office right now, reading a contract they do not fully understand, and signing anyway?