Prodigy Says Universal Owes Him Close to Seven Figures

Earlier today, it was reported that Queensbridge rapper, Prodigy of Mobb Deep, was suing Universal records over unpaid royalties. The reports that were circulating the web earlier today, claimed the Queensbridge rapper was owed $57,489 in royalty earnings.

However, XXL spoke with the Mobb Deep rapper to get the air straight on the lawsuit and the reports surfacing around the web. A cool, calm and collected P, opened up to XXL on his current lawsuit against Universal, and also shared with the publication the numbers that he believes Universal owes him. Along with P’s statements, the “Shook Ones” rapper also claims that a Mobb Deep lawsuit towards the music group is also in full effect.

You're in the headlines after it was reported that you were suing Universal for unpaid royalties. Tell us exactly what's going on with that situation?
Basically, you got these companies, these accountants, these lawyers you always gotta keep tabs on, you know what I mean? And like that old Biggie line, “Got lawyers, watching lawyers," so I won’t go broke, you know what I’m saying? It’s just something that we do in this business. You gotta audit sometimes. You gotta audit big companies. You gotta audit accountants. It's just a thing you have to do and you kind of foolish if you don’t do it, so basically it was that time of the season. We had our lawyers just checking on things and we found out that Universal was doing some things that they weren’t supposed to be doing and we found a whole lot of money. It’s well into the seven figures. I don’t know where they got that number that’s going around.

So the $57,489 that’s being reported is inaccurate?
Right, that’s like my lawyer's fee. [Laughs]

Do you have an estimate amount of what you believe Universal owes you?
It’s definitely well into the seven figures. I don’t know for sure, but we definitely found a lot of money being owed to us.

This going all the way back to 1995, correct?
Yeah, it’s going all the way to back then and we found out that they were doing things without our signatures, without permission. There was a lot of movies and TV shows and stuff like using Mobb Deep’s music and my music and we found out that they were doing a lot of stuff without permission, so now it’s time to pay up.

In the reports circling around the web, it says that you’re the only one placing a lawsuit against Universal. Is it just you or is Havoc involved in this too?
It’s definitely a Mobb Deep thing happening also and there’s my thing happening as well. Mobb Deep we always do this together where we check up on the group stuff and we check on our individual stuff as well. We’ve been so busy, touring and everything, so we just getting around to checking out the numbers.

When was the last time you guys did an audit before finding out about the issue?
We do one thing at a time because the lawyer fees are very expensive. You really gotta do one thing at a time. You gotta check all aspects of the business, the accountants, the publishers and this time around we checked Universal and unfortunately we found out they were in the wrong, so we’re about to fix it.

So is your issue being fixed first and then Mobb Deep’s?
It’s pretty much happening at the same time.

What’s next for you and Mobb Deep?
Other than that, we just been touring and working on the next Mobb Deep album. I’m working on my solo project that’ll be out very soon. We non-stop, work all day and just keep on going and going until the wheels fall off this shit. We let the music do the talking.