St. Louis Brothers Claim They’re Owed Millions In Royalties On Nelly’s Songs

Twin brothers David and Darren Stith filed a federal lawsuit claiming that they are owed millions for songs on Nelly's first two albums.

Two brothers from St. Louis, home to recording artist Nelly, have sued the rapper’s label, Universal Music Group, claiming that it owes the duo millions in royalties based on songs that appeared on Nelly’s first two albums.

According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, twin brothers David and Darren Stith filed a federal lawsuit on Nov. 29 in the Central District of California. The Stiths own a local independent label, D2, in St. Louis. In the legal paperwork, the Stiths claimed they were “directly responsible for finding, nurturing, and bringing to the public the music of” Nelly and his St. Lunatics collective of emcees by introducing them to music producer Jason Epperson.

The brothers claim they eventually signed contracts giving them the right to collect royalties from the albums Country Grammar and Nellyville and that they signed an agreement granting them royalties from several songs recorded by the St. Lunatics.

The Stiths say they are owed up to $10 million.

“What (Universal) is doing is they’re taking the same song and just changing the title,” said Jay Kanzler Jr., one of the attorneys representing the Stiths. “And so, when you talk about duplicate titles, they are collecting all that money, keeping it, and only paying us for the one song.”

The brothers are looking for the money that Universal Music Group owes the record label D2. Kanzler also asks that Universal supply documentation showing how much money the pair is owed for the songs that they were contracted to do for the St. Lunatics.

“Tell us what they are and how much you know you’ve made off of them, and give us our percentage,” he said. “So that we can do the analysis to determine whether or not we’ve been properly paid. Because at this point, you’ve given us nothing.”