Megan Thee Stallion took to Instagram Live on Sunday, March 1, and said her record label 1501 Certified Entertainment is keeping her from releasing new music.
She’s since filed a lawsuit against the label and its founder, former Major League Baseball player Carl Crawford.
“When I signed, I really didn’t know what was in my contract,” Megan explained. “I was young. I think I was, like, 20, and I ain’t know everything that was in that contract. So when I got with Roc Nation, I got management, real management, I got real lawyers, and they was like, ‘Do you know this was in your contract?’
“So I’m not mad at 1501,” she continued. “I wasn’t upset, ’cause I’m thinking in my head, ‘Oh, well, everybody cool, we all family, it’s cool, it’s nice. Let me just ask them n—-s to renegotiate my contract.'”
Megan then said that when she brought up the renegotiation, “everything went left.”
She went on to say, “So now they telling a b—h that she can’t drop no music. It’s really just, like, a greedy game…. I wasn’t trying to leave the label…. I just want to renegotiate some s–t.”
From there, Megan said that she’s not a greedy person, doesn’t like confrontation and treats everyone nicely. But that, she claimed, hasn’t stopped the label from wronging her.
“But n—–s going to be n—-s, and they going to be greedy, they going to be shady,” said Megan. “You mad because I don’t want to roll over and bow down like a little b—h, and you don’t want to renegotiate my contract.”
She then said that 1501 Certified Entertainment didn’t make her because she was Megan Thee Stallion before signing with them.
Crawford hasn’t responded directly to Megan’s claims, but that same day she put up her original post, the 1501 Instagram page put up a post that said: “At a time when loyalty is at an all time low it’s nice to be link with @jprincerespect who is steady teaching me how to move in this cutthroat industry 💯 And I know that terrifies some especially the ones who double cross me✊🏾🤘🏾
#Paybacksabitch #1501 #mobties”
Megan’s lawsuit is for at least $1 million in damages.
A judge in Harris County, Texas, has already granted Megan a temporary restraining order, which will allow her to put out new music on Friday, March 6. The restraining order is also supposed to keep the label from sullying her name on social media.
According to what it says in the suit, 1501 Certified Entertainment gets 60 percent of the money that Megan gets from recording, and she splits the remaining 40 percent with engineers, other studio people and featured artists.
Megan also claims that 1501 receives all of her money from touring and shows, and her label is supposed to let her know how much she’s owed.
But she said what they’ve given her is incomplete, as well as “purposefully and deceptively vague.” Megan claims that she only received a $10,000 advance after she signed with the label as well.
Moreover, Megan alleges that Crawford has been using Rap-a-lot Records founder J. Prince — who wasn’t named in the suit — to intimidate people in the music business.
Plus, Megan said that Prince played a role in trying to damage her reputation with an online smear campaign. Last month, a mugshot surfaced online that was from a 2015 arrest when Megan was booked for hitting her boyfriend.
“We are very happy the Court granted our TRO and thrilled that the world should be able to now hear Megan’s new music on March 6. We will now proceed with the other claims set forth in the [lawsuit],” Megan’s attorney Richard Busch told TMZ.
A lot of people weighed in on Megan’s drama on social media, and many seem to be on her side.
“1501 really leeching off of her meanwhile claiming they made her,” someone wrote on Twitter. “She the first name on they site. Nowhere do they mention any other artists because they ARE not known. I ain’t know who they were until now.”
But others said it was Megan’s fault that she signed a contract that she didn’t fully understand.
“She literally said she didn’t read her first contract,” someone wrote.
Megan then responded to that person on Twitter.
“It’s not that I literally didn’t read it it’s that I didn’t understand some of the verbiage at the time and now that I do I just wanted it corrected,” she wrote.
Megan shot to international fame after she dropped her 2019 mixtape “Fever,” and she’s yet to release her debut album.