Universal Music Group (UMG) is accused in a new lawsuit of spending just a third of the marketing budget promised for The Game’s 2022 album Drillmatic – Heart vs. Mind.
The legal complaint was filed on Wednesday (Sept. 30) by 100 Entertainment, the independent record label run by The Game (Jayceon Terrell Taylor). 100 Entertainment had an exclusive distribution deal with UMG’s Virgin Music Group for Drillmatic, which debuted at No. 12 on the Billboard 200 in August 2022 and spent two weeks on the chart.
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Wednesday’s lawsuit, obtained by Billboard, alleges that the album would have performed better if UMG had put more money into promotion. 100 Entertainment says UMG only spent $179,000 of the promised $500,000 recoupable marketing budget for Drillmatic, skipping key digital opportunities and failing to spend even a single dollar on radio promotion.
According to the lawsuit, 100 Entertainment had to put up its own funds to keep the album rollout on schedule. The label says it covered a “substantial portion” of the music video production for the single “Stupid” featuring Big Sean, and UMG has yet to reimburse these costs.
100 Entertainment is now suing UMG and Virgin for breach of contract. The label is seeking financial damages of at least $500,000 for the album’s “diminished commercial performance.”
“Deprived of nearly two-thirds of its bargained-for promotional support during the critical release cycle, the album did not perform as it would have had Defendants administered the marketing and promotion fund as the parties approved,” wrote 100 Entertainment’s lawyer Michael Trauben in the complaint. “Plaintiff thereby lost royalties, streaming and sales revenues, and related income that the album would have generated with the promised marketing support, in an amount to be proven at trial.”
UMG and Virgin denied any breach of contract in previous legal communications to 100 Entertainment, according to the complaint. A UMG rep did not immediately return a request for comment on the lawsuit on Thursday (Oct. 1).
Drillmatic was The Game’s eleventh solo studio album. In addition to the Big Sean feature, the 30-track LP also included collaborations with Ye (formerly Kanye West), Fivio Foreign, Ty Dolla $ign, Roddy Ricch, Lil Wayne, French Montana, Tory Lanez, Meek Mill, A$Ap Rocky, Cam’ron, Rick Ross and Chris Brown.