Juice WRLD estate sued by rapper’s former producer
Five years after the rapper Juice WRLD tragically passed away, his legacy only seems to be getting stronger with the release of three posthumous studio albums. However, one of those records has now sparked a legal battle over royalties between the producer Joshua Jaramillo and the rapper’s estate.
In particular, the conflict has emerged over the track, ‘Girl of My Dreams’. The 2021 track is a collaboration between Juice WRLD and the K-Pop superstar Suga from the group BST. This was the second collaboration between the two rappers, who first worked together in 2019 on the track, ‘All Night’. As BST stand as one of Korea’s biggest and most influential musical exports, both of the tracks performed incredibly well, hitting 29 on the Billboard Hot 100.
Jaramillo is credited as a songwriter on the track. However, a new court dispute claims he’s still waiting to be paid royalties. He claims that he worked on the song in exchange for 1% of the royalties and 5% ownership of the rights. He’s reportedly tried to resolve this amicably by reaching out to Juice WRLD’s family and estate; however as things still haven’t been solved and payments haven’t been made, it’s now been escalated to a legal battle to attempt to determine how much money the song has brought in and how much he might be owed.
Jaramillo is now suing the rapper’s estate for unspecified damages. He’s also demanding to see the full accounting numbers from the track, to see exactly how much money it made.
This legal battle only adds to the wider debate surrounding how Juice WRLD’s legacy has been handled and the ethics of posthumous releases. Having put out three albums since his death, that’s now more than he ever released while he was alive. To some fans, that’s not right as they wonder whether the rapper would have preferred his unreleased work to remain that way.
Juice WRLD’s estate issued a statement addressing their decision to release posthumous albums in 2021. “He left behind an astonishingly deep catalogue of music,” the statement read. “That will ensure his fans will have new songs to listen to for years to come.”
The legal complications with Jaramillo isn’t stopping the estate from putting out new music still. Juice WRLD’s sixth album, and his fourth posthumous release, The Party Never Ends is set to drop this summer with a rumoured Eminem collaboration.