One of Spotify’s biggest podcasters says he’s taking his show off the platform.

Rapper and broadcaster Joe Budden, whose The Joe Budden Podcast has streamed exclusively on Spotify since 2018, says his contract with the tech company will end in September. “We have seven episodes left,” he told listeners on the Wednesday episode of his show. “We are approaching the end of our Spotify contract.”

He explained that as of Sept. 23, “I cannot tell you where this podcast will be. But as it stands, I can tell you where it will not be, and that is Spotify.”

A Spotify spokesman declined to comment citing ongoing negotiations with Budden.

Budden started The Joe Budden Podcast in 2015 and operated it independently, distributing it on platforms like YouTube and iTunes, for the next few years. In 2018, just as Spotify was starting to explore expanding into non-music audio programming, the company approached Budden about an exclusive licensing deal. “It was a very new idea,” Budden said.

In the two years since, Spotify has invested hundreds of millions to grow its podcasting business, acquiring studios Gimlet Media, Parcast and The Ringer and inking deals with big-name talent including Barack and Michelle Obama. Exclusive podcasts have been a key piece of the strategy, with Spotify building on deals with talent like Budden and comedian Amy Schumer to nab high profile shows like The Joe Rogan Experience.

Through the expansion, The Joe Budden Podcast has remained one of Spotify’s most popular shows, regularly charting in top 20 on its podcast charts. As of Wednesday night, the show was ranked No. 9 behind shows including The Daily, Crime Junkie and Call Her Daddy.

Budden, who has been calling out Spotify on his show for the last few months, has taken particular issue with the size of his original two-year deal compared to the amount Spotify has paid to acquire podcast studios. Spotify has disclosed that The Ringer, for instance, sold for nearly $200 million. “I won’t get into numbers; I have NDAs everywhere,” Budden said, adding that he was being “paid the least in my most valuable asset.”

He went on to explain that he expected he’s receive a bonus after the first year of his deal due to the show’s performance, but he didn’t get one. “I was confused,” he said.

A source familiar with the situation says Budden has been offered a significantly larger deal than the one he signed in 2018, a fact that Budden confirmed on his podcast when he said, “It is more money than I have ever been privy to in my life.” But, he added, the offer comprises more than just the podcast, and if he were to accept “I would not be able to sleep at night.”

Budden said he’s not angry or bitter “because, the reality is, we both hit our goals,” but his decision is all about having a partner who respects him. “Spotify never cared about this podcast individually,” he said. “Spotify only cared about our contribution to the platform.”

[via Billboard]

Kanye West is being sued by a Black-owned video and e-commerce company called MyChannel Inc (MYC) that claims the artist breached their mutual non-disclosure agreement and took “their proprietary and confidential technology and information to fuel the e-commerce engine” of his Yeezy brand. The federal lawsuit that was filed in California Central District on Tuesday (Aug. 25) alleges West and his Yeezy brand made “lavish promises to MYC of millions of dollars in economic reward” in the formation of a partnership, but didn’t follow through.

MYC says they relied on those promises and devoted “tens of thousands of hours” to Yeezy. Yet instead of a lucrative partnership, they say West cut off contact and took their proprietary and confidential technology and used it for his own Yeezy e-commerce engine.

In its 32-page complaint, the company claims that it “invented a new way of using novel technology and artificial intelligence to seamlessly marry e-commerce to video content.” West became interested in their project in spring 2018 and convinced MYC company founders CEO Julian Duggan and COO Gibran Gadsden to devote their full attention to him and his brand, the lawsuit claims, including moving their headquarters from Pennsylvania to Yeezy’s headquarters, first in Calabasas, California, and then Chicago, and working full time on the West project to their own cost of $7 million. Over a six-month span of time, West, they say, encouraged them “to devote millions of dollars in time and to the venture, to develop, build-out, operate and manage the Yeezy e-commerce business.” That included hundreds of thousands of dollars relocating executives on “personal living and travel expenses from living both in California and then Chicago at Mr. West’s demand.”

#BREAKING: @mspopok and I just filed a federal lawsuit against Kanye West for misappropriating proprietary information and not paying his business partners. We will hold Mr. West accountable, as well as those who aided and abetted his conduct, and bring justice to our client. pic.twitter.com/OGpgL5qurG

— Ben Meiselas (@meiselasb) August 25, 2020

West also allegedly promised them he would make a $10 million dollar strategic investment in MYC and allegedly agreed to a non-disclosure agreement with MYC to protect their trade secrets. Yet, in the end, MYC says West exploited their proprietary information and then used a copycat video e-commerce technology to drive merchandise sales on his Sunday Service platform.

“He later inexplicably reneged on his promises seemingly on a whim and walked away from the successful partnership while misappropriating MYC’s proprietary and trade secrets, netting Kanye hundreds of millions of dollars off the back of MYC,” according to the complaint.

MYC attorney Ben Meiselas posted this statement on social media: “Attorney Michael Popok and I just filed a federal lawsuit against Kanye West for misappropriating proprietary information and not paying his business partners. We will hold Mr. West accountable, as well as those who aided and abetted his conduct, and bring justice to our client.”The plaintiffs are seeking compensatory damages in an amount to be determined at trial.West’s rep did not respond to a request for comment a time of publishing.

[via MSN]

Hipgnosis Songs has acquired a 50% stake in the copyright and writers share of iconic Wu-Tang Clan leader, producer and rapper RZA, the company announced today (Aug. 24). The worldwide deal encompasses 814 songs, including almost the entire Wu-Tang Clan catalog, which RZA largely produced, as well as songs by Kanye West, The Notorious B.I.G., The Game, Earl Sweatshirt and more.

RZA is considered the lead of the Wu-Tang Clan, the nine-member hip-hop collective that exploded out of Staten Island in the early 1990s and would go on to redefine the rap world, not just artistically but in a business sense, too, with RZA playing a role in securing the rights for each member to sign solo recording deals in addition to the group’s record deal. RZA provided the soundscape for each of the Clan’s albums, beginning with 1993’s Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers), as well as solo albums for members Method Man, Raekwon, Ghostface Killah, Ol’ Dirty Bastard and GZA, among others, as well as his own solo albums and film soundtracks. He’s widely considered among the greatest hip-hop producers of all time.

For Hipgnosis and founder Merck Mercuriadis, this represents the latest high-profile catalog in which they’ve purchased a stake in recent months. Blondie, Barry Manilow, Rodney Jerkins, No I.D., Mark Ronson, Jack Antonoff and more are some of the artists whose catalogs Hipgnosis has acquired outright or a stake in of late.

“RZA and the Wu-Tang Clan did not invent hip-hop, but they took it from being fun to something that represented a true reflection of what the streets, and being black in America was really like,” Mercuriadis said in a statement. “They were and are the most authentic band and brand in hip-hop and it all starts with RZA’s vision, his songs and his struggle, manifested in music, that could show the entire world what was really going on. He is now globally recognized as a true renaissance man of hip-hop and most would argue that he is the GOAT.”

“I wear various hats in my artistic expressions but the one that has been so deeply reflective of my life’s journey is my songwriting,” RZA said in a statement. “I’m honored to partner up with Merck and the Hipgnosis team to usher my songs into an exciting future.”

[via Variety]