In a free-form rant posted online back in October, Kanye West said he’d tried to purchase his publishing catalog from Sony/ATV Music and they declined. “I have the money to buy [back] my publishing,” West says in the video. “And they told me that I couldn’t buy my publishing…. It’s like the control.” While the terms of his contract are not public, music publishing deals typically do not allow artistes to simply buy back their publishing whenever they want.
However, on Friday West tried another course of action by filing a pair of lawsuits in an attempt to extract himself from his publishing and label deals (the news was first reported by The Hollywood Reporter).
One is against EMI Music Publishing, with whom he signed in 2003 and which is now owned by Sony/ATV, and the other is against the Universal Music Group companies Roc-a-Fella Records (the formerly Jay-Z-owned record label that released his early albums), Def Jam Records and UMG’s merchandising arm, Bravado.
The move seems to be an attempt to acquire the rights to his music, something he also alluded to in the October video, obliquely referencing Prince’s strenuous efforts over the years to gain control of his catalog. Read more