\n<\/p>\n
\n\tGrammy-winning producer Jermaine Dupri has filed a blistering lawsuit against Sony Music Entertainment (SME), accusing the company of underpaying and concealing royalties tied to his work with artists including Mariah Carey, Usher, Kris Kross, Xscape, Bow Wow, and Da Brat.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe Atlanta-based producer and songwriter, known for shaping the sound of Nineties hip-hop and R&B, claims Sony Music \u201cknew that it was violating\u201d contracts with him and his influential label, So So Def, but \u201cnever attempted to disclose its contemptuous accounting practices.\u201d Dupri\u2019s lawsuit, filed in Manhattan federal court, is seeking at least $18 million in damages.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cGiven the systemic pattern of underreporting royalties, failure of reporting royalites, and altering and\/or updating statements to report previously earned royalties, [Sony Music Entertainment] has engaged in willful deceitful actions designed to harm plaintiffs in their business,\u201d the new 13-page lawsuit obtained by Rolling Stone<\/em> reads.<\/p>\n \n\tIn the case of Kris Kross, Dupri claims Sony hid royalties owed on Kris Kross\u2019 catalog for more than two decades. According to the complaint, Sony kept those funds in \u201ca separate royalty accounting system unknown to plaintiffs.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tDupri alleges Sony also knowingly concealed additional money owed from Jagged Edge\u2019s 1997 album, The Jagged Era<\/em>, and altered royalty statements dating back several years. He and his lawyer, Chris Brown, list at least seven contracts between the producer and Sony Music entities covering more than 25 years. They claim an accounting audit conducted last year uncovered millions owed to Dupri and his companies, So So Def Recordings and So So Def Productions.<\/p>\n \n\tReps for Sony Music did not immediately return Rolling Stone<\/em>\u2018s request for comment. Dupri\u2019s lawyer said he had no comment when reached by email Tuesday.<\/p>\n \n\tIn the lawsuit, Dupri is described as a \u201cmastermind\u201d of the Southern hip-hop and R&B sound. It notes Dupri was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2018, and that he won the Grammy Award for Best R&B Song in 2006 for the track \u201cWe Belong Together,\u201d which he co-wrote with Mariah Carey and Johnt\u00e1 Austin. The lawsuit links to the song\u2019s Spotify stream count<\/a>, which listed more than 942,000,000 streams as of Tuesday.<\/p>\n \t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n \n\t\u201cDupri is a musical icon whose recordings on So-So Def and production with other artists have produced over $200,000,000 in gross revenue in the music industry,\u201d the lawsuit states. While the complaint is asking for at least $18 million in damages, Dupri is not stopping there.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cGiven that the matter of unreported producer royalties is not an isolated issue, evident by the above, it is likely that SME did not report producer royalties to plaintiffs for producer services rendered in connection with other artists associated with the So-So Def\/SME deals,\u201d the lawsuit reads. \u201cAdditional royalties due to plaintiffs have yet to be determined.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Grammy-winning producer Jermaine Dupri has filed a blistering lawsuit against Sony Music Entertainment (SME), accusing the company of underpaying and concealing royalties tied to his work with artists including Mariah Carey, Usher, Kris Kross, Xscape, Bow Wow, and Da Brat. The Atlanta-based producer and songwriter, known for shaping the sound of Nineties hip-hop and R&B, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":34297,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/JermaineDupri-1.jpg?w=1600&h=900&crop=1","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[431],"tags":[1868,7493,7492,2907,24337,3629,3657,6879],"class_list":["post-34296","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rock-music","tag-carey","tag-dupri","tag-jermaine","tag-mariah","tag-royalties","tag-sues","tag-tied","tag-usher"],"rttpg_featured_image_url":{"full":["https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/JermaineDupri-1.jpg?w=1600&h=900&crop=1",0,0,false],"landscape":["https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/JermaineDupri-1.jpg?w=1600&h=900&crop=1",0,0,false],"portraits":["https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/JermaineDupri-1.jpg?w=1600&h=900&crop=1",0,0,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/JermaineDupri-1.jpg?w=1600&h=900&crop=1",150,150,false],"medium":["https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/JermaineDupri-1.jpg?w=1600&h=900&crop=1",300,300,false],"large":["https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/JermaineDupri-1.jpg?w=1600&h=900&crop=1",1024,1024,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/JermaineDupri-1.jpg?w=1600&h=900&crop=1",1536,1536,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/JermaineDupri-1.jpg?w=1600&h=900&crop=1",2048,2048,false],"post-thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/JermaineDupri-1.jpg?w=1600&h=900&crop=1",370,265,false],"kava-thumb-s":["https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/JermaineDupri-1.jpg?w=1600&h=900&crop=1",150,85,false],"kava-thumb-s-2":["https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/JermaineDupri-1.jpg?w=1600&h=900&crop=1",230,230,false],"kava-thumb-m":["https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/JermaineDupri-1.jpg?w=1600&h=900&crop=1",400,400,false],"kava-thumb-m-vertical":["https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/JermaineDupri-1.jpg?w=1600&h=900&crop=1",370,500,false],"kava-thumb-m-2":["https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/JermaineDupri-1.jpg?w=1600&h=900&crop=1",570,450,false],"kava-thumb-l":["https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/JermaineDupri-1.jpg?w=1600&h=900&crop=1",1170,650,false],"kava-thumb-xl":["https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/JermaineDupri-1.jpg?w=1600&h=900&crop=1",1920,1080,false],"kava-thumb-masonry":["https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/JermaineDupri-1.jpg?w=1600&h=900&crop=1",600,999,false],"kava-thumb-justify":["https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/JermaineDupri-1.jpg?w=1600&h=900&crop=1",640,640,false],"kava-thumb-justify-2":["https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/JermaineDupri-1.jpg?w=1600&h=900&crop=1",1280,640,false]},"rttpg_author":{"display_name":"#RiseCelestialStudios","author_link":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/author\/ralph-c\/"},"rttpg_comment":0,"rttpg_category":"Rock & Roll Music<\/a>","rttpg_excerpt":"Grammy-winning producer Jermaine Dupri has filed a blistering lawsuit against Sony Music Entertainment (SME), accusing the company of underpaying and concealing royalties tied to his work with artists including Mariah Carey, Usher, Kris Kross, Xscape, Bow Wow, and Da Brat. The Atlanta-based producer and songwriter, known for shaping the sound of Nineties hip-hop and R&B,…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34296","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34296"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34296\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34297"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n