Megan Thee Stallion has expressed her desire to leave her label, 1501 Certified Entertainment, for some time now (having signed with them in 2018). This week marks the most recent turn of events in their long-standing dispute.
On March 21, the label countersued the rapper — just weeks after she filed a lawsuit against them over her Something For Thee Hotties project. Megan argues that 1501 should recognise Something as an album, meaning she can leave the label sooner rather than later.
According to Megan, an album is a 45-minute-long musical project — and Something exceeds this run time by exactly two seconds. If the courts do in fact recognise Something an album, Megan would only be legally required to release one more album with the label before being freed from the contract.
However, 1501 claim that Something does not fulfil the 45-minute definition of an album as it is “made up of 21 recordings and includes spoken interlude recordings on which Megan does not appear as well as several previously released recordings.”
The label states that Something contains only 29 minutes of original material. They also maintain that the album had not been pre-approved and Megan was told: “from the very beginning [Something] is not going to count toward your album count.”
Megan’s lawyer, Brad Hancock, says: “This is yet another absurd attempt by 1501 to disregard Megan’s album and squeeze more money and free work out of her for as long as possible. We will ask the court to protect Megan from this type of abuse.”
Why does Megan want out?
This isn’t the first time that Megan has had trouble with the label.
- In March 2020, Megan claimed via Instagram Live that 1501 barred her from releasing new music after she tried to renegotiate her contract. Megan won and was granted a temporary restraining order, allowing her to release her EP Suga (March 6).
- In August 2021, Megan filed another lawsuit against the label so she could release her feature on BTS’s “Butter” remix, which 1501 was reportedly stopping her from releasing saying that the feature would not be “good for her career.” Megan, however, argued that blocking the song’s release would cause “irreparable damage” to her career and requested another temporary restraining order. She won the case and released the song on August 27.
There are financial issues too. Industry-standard dictates that recording profits are split 50/50 between the artist and their label. However, under her current contract, Megan only gets a 40% share of the profits while 1501 receives the remaining 60%. In addition, Megan must give up profits from sectors that labels usually can’t touch, including publishing, touring income, merchandising, and more.
In a now-deleted Instagram post, Megan claimed that she has never received payment from 1501 “in her life.” She also alleged that 1501 CEO, Carl Crawford, added his “jewellery and chains” to an expense report.
Megan took to Twitter to share her frustrations:
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