{"id":633310,"date":"2026-10-17T09:24:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-17T09:24:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/633310\/"},"modified":"2026-10-17T09:24:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-17T09:24:11","slug":"cordae-sued-for-25-million-by-label-trying-to-block-new-album","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/633310\/","title":{"rendered":"Cordae Sued for $25 Million by Label Trying to Block New Album"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cordae<\/a> is heading into release week for his joint album with Anderson .Paak<\/a>, with a federal lawsuit hanging over it.<\/p>\n

MMMG Inc. filed a 20-page complaint<\/a> on Oct. 15 in the Southern District of New York, naming Cordae along with EMPIRE Distribution, Apeshit, and Mass Appeal Records. The label is asking for at least $25 million and an injunction that would halt releases of recordings it says it owns.<\/p>\n

The Florida-based company claims it signed Cordae in April 2018 and put out his first two albums with Atlantic as a distributor. In the lawsuit, it claims full ownership of his recorded copyrights, plus exclusive merchandising, touring and endorsement rights.<\/p>\n

The suit centers around the upcoming release of Heavy Is the Crown<\/a>, a joint album Cordae is releasing with .Paak.<\/p>\n

The filing lays out three claims. MMMG alleges willful copyright infringement tied to the Sept. 16 release of the project\u2019s lead single “A Good Day” and its Dave Meyers-directed video<\/a>, seeking at least $5 million. A breach of contract claim against Cordae over withheld merch, touring, and endorsement revenue seeks at least $15 million. And, finally, a tortious interference claim against the three labels seeks another $5 million. More copyright infringement claims will be added if more Heavy Is the Crown tracks are released.<\/p>\n

The timeline in the complaint starts on Sept. 2, 2025, when Atlantic terminated its distribution deal, followed two days later by MMMG’s notice that it had replaced Atlantic with music distribution platform Stem.<\/p>\n

From there it runs through the album’s announcement on Aug. 19 of this year, MMMG’s Aug. 20 cease-and-desist letters to EMPIRE and Mass Appeal, and the Sept. 16 arrival of “A Good Day.”<\/p>\n

The fight turns on whether the move to Stem satisfied a contract clause giving MMMG six months to line up a qualified distributor. Cordae’s attorneys argue the arrangement was invalid without an inducement letter agreeing to its terms. MMMG says that Cordae\u2019s deal with them \u201ccontains no requirement whatsoever\u201d for such a letter, and that the rapper\u2019s challenge is in bad faith. <\/p>\n

Heavy Is The Crown<\/a> is still set to come out on Oct. 23.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cordae is heading into release week for his joint album with Anderson .Paak, with a federal lawsuit hanging…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":633311,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[156,157,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-633310","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-music","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633310","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=633310"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633310\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/633311"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=633310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=633310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=633310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}