Music Publisher Reservoir Media Secures Global Rights to T.I. Discography

Multi-platinum recording artist T.I., second from left, poses alongside Reservoir Media executives to celebrate a new publishing agreement. Pictured from left are Reservoir CEO Golnar Khosrowshahi, T.I., Executive Vice President of A&R and Catalog Development Faith Newman, and President Rell Lafargue. The Atlanta rap pioneer signed a comprehensive worldwide publishing deal with the company on Thursday covering his entire back catalog and future releases. (Courtesy photo)

T.I. is turning his legacy into long-term publishing business.

The Grammy-winning Atlanta rapper has signed a worldwide publishing deal with Reservoir Media covering his back catalog and future works, including his new album, “Kill the King,” the company announced Thursday.

Financial terms were not disclosed.

The agreement gives Reservoir a role in a catalog that helped push Atlanta trap from regional movement to global rap language. Reservoir said the deal spans T.I.’s full publishing catalog, including his back catalog and future work, and comes as “Kill the King” has debuted in the top 10 on Billboard’s Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums and Top Rap Albums charts.

T.I., born Clifford Joseph Harris Jr., has released a catalog that Reservoir said includes 11 studio albums, more than 100 singles and 13 mixtapes. His hits include “What You Know,” “Bring Em Out,” “Live Your Life,” “Dead and Gone” and “Swagga Like Us.”

“I’m very excited about building a strong partnership with Reservoir as we work together to diversify the business and expand the reach of my catalog,” Harris said in a statement.

The deal arrives as T.I. is also positioning “Kill the King” as the closing chapter of his rap career. In a People interview published Thursday, he reflected on retiring from music, family life with Tameka “Tiny” Cottle-Harris and the 25-year arc from his 2001 debut, “I’m Serious,” to his final album.

That makes the Reservoir agreement more than routine catalog housekeeping. It is a legacy move by one of the central figures of 2000s Southern rap at a time when hip-hop catalogs from the CD era are being treated as long-term assets.

Reservoir Executive Vice President of A&R and Catalog Development Faith Newman called T.I. the “King of the South” and said his music helped put Atlanta’s rap scene on the map.

“His crossover successes and enduring popularity have proven time and again how much his music resonates with fans,” Newman said.

Reservoir President and Chief Operating Officer Rell Lafargue said T.I.’s music has “real cultural significance and staying power.”

T.I. won three Grammys during his commercial peak, including best rap solo performance for “What You Know” and best rap/sung collaboration for Justin Timberlake’s “My Love.” He won again in 2009 for “Swagga Like Us,” the Jay-Z, Kanye West, Lil Wayne and T.I. collaboration built around an M.I.A. sample.

His 2008 album “Paper Trail” remains the cleanest example of his crossover reach. The project included “Live Your Life” with Rihanna, “Dead and Gone” with Timberlake and “Whatever You Like,” turning the self-proclaimed King of the South into one of rap’s most reliable pop-chart names without fully detaching him from trap music’s street foundation.

Bone Thugs-N-Harmony Get Permanent Place on Hollywood Walk of Fame

Members of the Grammy-winning rap group Bone Thugs-N-Harmony — from left, Wish Bone, Bizzy Bone, Krayzie Bone, and Layzie Bone — are shown in this undated promotional file photo. The pioneering Cleveland group was honored Wednesday with the 2,851st star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. (Photo: Ruthless Records / File)

Bone Thugs-N-Harmony’s Cleveland sound now has a permanent address in Hollywood.

The Grammy-winning rap group received the 2,851st star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on Wednesday during a ceremony at 6126 Hollywood Blvd., where friends, family, fans and fellow hip-hop veterans gathered to celebrate one of rap’s most distinctive groups.

The honor came in the recording category, more than three decades after Krayzie Bone, Layzie Bone, Bizzy Bone, Wish Bone and Flesh-n-Bone turned rapid-fire flows, street harmonies and grief-soaked melody into a sound no one else could duplicate.

“Cleveland is in the house,” Jerry Newman, chair of the board of the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, said as the ceremony opened.

Radio personality Big Boy hosted the ceremony, calling the day “beautiful” as fans lined the sidewalk in the July sun. He introduced the group as pioneers whose music brought national attention to Midwestern rap while helping shape the melodic, double-time style that still echoes through hip-hop and R&B.

“There’s a lot of people that pay homage and there’s a lot of sloppy carbon copies,” Big Boy said.

That was the unspoken theme of the afternoon: Bone Thugs-N-Harmony did not just make hits. They invented a lane.

Fat Joe, who spoke before the unveiling, said he had attended about 10 Walk of Fame ceremonies and had never seen a crowd spill into the street the way fans did for Bone Thugs-N-Harmony.

“I owe a great deal to Bone Thugs-N-Harmony,” Fat Joe said.

The Bronx rapper said the group supported him early in his career, took him on tour, appeared in his videos and stayed close through personal loss, including the death of Big Pun.

“They never acted funny with me,” Fat Joe said. “They took me on tour with them. They came to my videos. They showed up in my songs.”

Fat Joe said the moment also mattered because the five members were together, healthy and able to receive the honor in person.

“I love that the guys are all here,” he said. “They all look great.”

Ice-T followed with a speech that put the group’s legacy in the context of 1990s hip-hop, when biting another artist’s style was one of the fastest ways to lose credibility.

“I get a phone call. They say Bone Thugs getting a star. I said, ‘About time,’” Ice-T said.

He asked the crowd to pause and appreciate that the members were alive, together and receiving their flowers in public.

“Usually, you only see people like this — we only get together during bad times,” Ice-T said. “Let’s just applaud the fact that all Bone Thugs are alive, healthy and here.”

Ice-T said originality was the currency of the group’s era.

“Our era of hip-hop, you had to be original,” he said. “You could not sound like anybody else.”

When Bone Thugs-N-Harmony arrived, he said, there was no mistaking them for anyone else.

“When Bone Thugs hit the scene, they were like nothing we had ever heard,” Ice-T said. “That’s why I got to tip my hat to them.”

The group formed in Cleveland in 1991, originally performing as B.O.N.E. Enterpri$e before being discovered by Eazy-E. He signed them to Ruthless Records in 1993, giving the West Coast label a group that sounded nothing like Los Angeles, New York or Atlanta.

That difference became the point.

Their national breakthrough came with the 1994 EP “Creepin on ah Come Up,” powered by “Thuggish Ruggish Bone” and “Foe tha Love of $.” A year later, “E. 1999 Eternal” made them unavoidable.

Released in 1995, “E. 1999 Eternal” debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and produced “1st of tha Month,” “East 1999” and “Tha Crossroads.” The last of those, rewritten as a tribute after Eazy-E’s death, spent eight weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and won the Grammy Award for best rap performance by a duo or group in 1997.

“Tha Crossroads” did something rap was still fighting to prove in the mid-1990s: It made mourning sound massive.

Bone Thugs followed with “The Art of War” in 1997, another No. 1 album that included “Look Into My Eyes” and “If I Could Teach the World.” By then, the group’s influence had moved beyond Cleveland and Ruthless Records. Their cadence, hooks and sing-rap approach were already being absorbed across hip-hop and R&B.

Big Boy called them “veterans and relevant at the same damn time.”

During brief acceptance remarks, the members thanked God, their families, Ruthless Records, longtime collaborators and the fans who stayed with them for more than 30 years.

“From the trenches to the stars,” one member said. “We’ve been through it all, through the fire and the rain. We came from a place where opportunities were way too limited. So to be here standing with my brothers is something that I don’t take for granted.”

He said the group’s mission was simple.

“All we wanted to do was share a particular sound to inspire the world,” he said.

Another member made clear that the star belonged beyond the five men whose names were being honored.

“This is everybody’s star,” he said.

That line fit the afternoon. For Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, the Walk of Fame star is not just a trophy for past sales. It is a public marker for a sound that stretched rap’s vocabulary and made Cleveland part of hip-hop’s emotional map.

The group’s records could be spiritual and menacing in the same breath. “1st of tha Month” turned a welfare-check calendar date into a celebration. “Tha Crossroads” became a funeral song and a victory lap at the same time. “Thuggish Ruggish Bone” sounded like a cipher drifting through smoke.

That influence is easier to hear now than it was to explain then. The melodic rap that later became a default language for many artists did not appear out of nowhere. Bone Thugs helped make it commercially viable without sanding off the speed, darkness or strangeness that made them special.

At the end of the ceremony, the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce proclaimed Wednesday Bone Thugs-N-Harmony Day in Hollywood before the group unveiled its star.

More than 30 years after five Cleveland rappers chased a record deal to California, Hollywood gave Bone Thugs-N-Harmony a star. Cleveland gave them the hunger. Eazy-E gave them the door. Hip-hop gave them the sky.

The harmony still travels.

Jermaine Dupri Lawsuit Claims Sony Underpaid So So Def Royalties

Producer and So So Def Recordings founder Jermaine Dupri filed an $18 million federal lawsuit against Sony Music Entertainment on Monday. The lawsuit alleges a systemic pattern of underreported royalties tied to foundational Atlanta hip-hop acts including Kris Kross, Xscape, and Da Brat. 

Jermaine Dupri turned So So Def into one of the most important Black music factories of the 1990s and
early 2000s. Now, he says Sony Music Entertainment owes him millions from the catalog that helped make Atlanta a permanent fixture on the Billboard charts.

Dupri, So So Def Recordings, and So So Def Productions sued Sony in federal court in New York on Monday, accusing the company of underpaying royalties tied to some of the biggest records of the era. The lawsuit seeks at least $18 million in damages, plus prejudgment interest and attorneys' fees.

The case, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, turns a three-decade label relationship into a fierce fight over accounting, recoupment, and catalog money.

The complaint outlines a systematic pattern of accounting errors, alleging Sony underreported royalties, failed to report others entirely, and altered old statements.

“As it turns out, many of SME’s dealings with So So Def have not been lawful and have harmed So So Def in its business,” the complaint states. “[Sony Music Entertainment] intentionally failed to account to Plaintiffs to avoid paying millions of dollars to the Plaintiffs."

The lawsuit names a roll call familiar to anyone who listened to R&B radio in the 1990s and 2000s, including Xscape, Kris Kross, Da Brat, Jagged Edge, Bow Wow and Bone Crusher.

The sharpest allegations in the lawsuit involve Kris Kross, the teenage Atlanta duo Dupri discovered before their smash hit "Jump" turned backward clothing into a national uniform.

Dupri alleges Sony did not report producer or override royalties tied to the group's first two albums, "Totally Krossed Out" and "Da Bomb," until 2023. The lawsuit claims more than $2.2 million is still owed from those two albums alone.

“SME attempted to conceal all Kris Kross royalties due Plaintiffs for over 20 years in a separate royalty accounting system unknown to Plaintiffs,” the complaint states.

The lawsuit also targets the accounting for Xscape’s 1993 debut album, "Hummin' Comin' at 'Cha." Dupri’s side alleges Sony underreported more than $960,000 in producer royalties from that specific project.

Despite both of Xscape's first two albums being certified platinum, the lawsuit claims Sony still listed a So So Def account as being more than $1.5 million in the red as of June 2020, calling the discrepancy "unfathomable".

Da Brat’s historic 1994 debut, "Funkdafied," is also part of the dispute. The complaint alleges Sony withheld more than $1 million in producer royalties tied to the album, which made Da Brat the first solo female MC to be certified platinum.

The legal filing states the problems came into sharp focus following a 2025 desk audit by Gelfand, Rennert & Feldman, an accounting firm frequently used in entertainment royalty disputes. Dupri and the So So Def companies allege the audit uncovered years of reporting problems, missing payments, and amended statements that only partially corrected old figures.

The lawsuit notes that Dupri’s So So Def recordings and production deals helped generate more than $200 million in gross revenue over their 32-year business relationship. The $18 million sought in the suit includes more than $10 million in interest.

Sony Music Entertainment has not yet publicly responded to the filing.