Chart-topper T-Pain learned the hard way the importance of securing a lawyer when signing big contracts.
The artist sat down with rapper LaRussell and GoodCompenny for an episode of “Free Game Friday” in June to talk about his career and some of the pitfalls he had. One major one was how he was a multi-millionaire before he was 20 and lost it all through mismanagement.
He explained that awareness about the financials behind the music is incredibly important to know.
The “I’m Sprung” singer was around 21 when signed his first recording contract with Akon ‘s Konvict Muzik in 2005. At the time, he had already recorded and distributed his first debut solo mixtape, “Back @It,” and scored himself a hit single on the street.
Deal After Deal
To say Akon was impressed would seem to be an understatement. According to T-Pain, he went with Akon over other record companies, some of whom were offering him big checks totaling $900,000, because Akon appreciated his passion as an entertainer and songwriter.
In a separate interview with Real 92.3 five years ago, the “Buy U a Drank” artist said, “When I went to all these companies, they was like, ‘I love this song. I love this song. What can we do? Can we get another song? Can we do this song?’ and Akon was like, ‘I love you. I love what you’re doing and I wanna make sure you have a long career.’”
The difference in the offer was drastic, as the “Locked Up” singer could only offer T-Pain a $20,000 advance.
The “I’m Sprung” single was re-released through Konvict/ Jive and quickly rose to the top of the Billboard charts, creating a demand for the newcomer who could do it all— sing, rap, produce.
Eventually, Jive/ Zomba Music Group stepped in and offered to sweeten the pot. The label offered him a mid-eight-figure check to allow them to partner with him in a joint venture.
A joint venture would allow him to run his own imprint label and rely on the more established label for marketing, promotion, and distribution. It sounded good at the time.
He signed it however, without knowing the details of the agreement.
“Believe or not,” he shared with Free Game Friday, “In 2022, I just now found out what my first deal was. I had no f—king idea.”
He said, he had two managers that told him that all he to do was worry about music and they would handle the business–but it turned out they didn’t handle business to his benefit, T-Pain said. He only recently discovered this when approached about a deal for his music catalog.
“I was like I’m about to get paid,” he recalled, before realizing that the bad deal he did almost 20 years ago impacted him today.
He explained what that deal looked like.
“First deal, that whole first joint was 15/85 [split],” the artist said.
Adding, “But they gave me crazy money, so I didn’t even care. Like, bro, they straight-up was like, ‘Alright, deal’s done. Here you go.”
The label also gave him a $40 million as an advance on the joint venture, but they maintained 85 percent of his earnings from his music.
He said that at the time, he didn’t care because the amount of money was more than he could imagine.
Typically, a joint venture record deal is a business arrangement where two or more entities—often a record label and an artist or an independent label — partner to share resources, profits, and risks involved in the production, distribution, and promotion of music. In this type of deal, the parties share the revenue generated from the music sales and related activities. Profits are typically split between the artist and the label according to a pre-agreed percentage.
This kind of deal is often seen as a way for artists to have more control over their careers and retain a higher percentage of their earnings compared to traditional record deals, where the label usually has more control and takes a larger share of the profits, according to Tunedly, a resource platform for singers and songwriters.
Problem was T-Pain didn’t realize he had signed a 85/15 split, which not the norm for joint ventures. Most joint ventures are profit splits meaning 50-50, according to music blog Steak Worldwide.
An 85/15 deal is usually a 360 deal, where the “label operates at a loss for an extended period. There is a massive investment in the artist’s development, covering all expenses, including touring, recording, marketing & more. In return, the label then gets to recoup their investment from all forms of revenue that the artist generates, including touring & merchandising. In contrast, traditional record deals recoup based on music sales,” according to Steak Worldwide.
This is the deal Megan Thee Stallion fought hard to get out of with 1501 Certified Entertainment, where while she got money up front, and then the company was benefiting much more than she when her music exploded.
T-Pain said that after decade in the deal, he was able to renegotiate.
“Probably about 10 years in that deal, I was like, ‘Yo, we need to restructure this,” he explained.
The two-time Grammy Award winner said chalked it up to him being young and people around him being greedy.
Now as a veteran in the game who has made millions, lost it all, and then made millions again, he can pass on the “free game” about paying attention to the contracts to those coming behind him.
