Just a week after telling fans that she’s funding her own music career on Instagram Live, Megan Thee Stallion has officially settled her prolonged legal battle with her former label 1501 Certified Entertainment.
The two entities “mutually reached a confidential settlement to resolve their legal differences,” and will “amicably part ways.” Specifics on the deal are being kept under wraps.
“Both Megan and 1501 are pleased to put this matter behind them and move forward with the next chapter of their respective businesses,” 1501 said in a statement to Billboard. Its president Carl Crawford added that they “wish Megan the very best in her life and career.” Reps for Megan Thee Stallion did not provide comment.
This marks the end of a bitter feud that’s been ongoing for more than three years after Megan signed with the imprint in 2018. In March 2020, Megan said that the label was blocking her from releasing her album “Suga” after she had requested to renegotiate her contract. Two months prior, she announced she was signing with Roc Nation for management, taking 1501 operations manager T. Farris with her and cutting Crawford out. According to Megan, the move to prevent her from putting out new music was done in retaliation.
“I wasn’t upset [with 1501] because I was thinking, ‘Everybody cool, we all family,” she said at the time. Megan claimed that she was in an unfair deal that she was duped into signing before her star took off. “It’s cool, it’s nice… Let me just ask [them] to renegotiate my contract.’ So now they telling a bitch that she can’t drop no music. It’s really just a greedy game. You mad because I don’t want to bow down, roll over like a little bitch, and you don’t want to renegotiate my contract.”
She filed a federal lawsuit against 1501 in Texas, wherein a judge granted her a temporary restraining order against the label and ordered the company not to interfere with the release of music or with the rapper on social media.
Subsequent litigation followed, with Megan filing a suit against 1501 in February 2022 claiming that the imprint wouldn’t count her 2021 release “Something for Thee Hotties” as part of her three-album deal. 1501 countersued, stating that it wasn’t long enough to count as an album.
Then, in August 2022, Megan filed another complaint seeking $1 million in damages, citing “underpayment of royalties” and for “wrongfully [allowing] for excessive marketing and promotion charges to be deducted from amounts owed to [her] under the recording agreement.” 1501 countered, stating that it was instead Megan who owed them millions of dollars.
This past December, a judge ruled that the case would need to go before a jury. In April, Megan filed yet another motion in court alleging that Crawford and 1501 were withholding money from her by keeping their bank accounts under $10,000, despite depositing millions of dollars. She asked the judge to involve a third party to oversee 1501’s bank accounts.
Potentially, the conclusion of this legal battle could yield a signing frenzy for Megan, who released two studio albums under 1501 including 2022’s “Traumazine.” While on the label, she hit the top of the Billboard Hot 100 with “Savage” in 2020, and most recently hit the top 20 from her feature on Cardi B’s “Bongos.”
