Last week the online Royalty Exchange platform announced that it would auction 1.5% of sound recording royalties from the Tribe Called Quest for the first five studio albums. The idea was to “earn money every time the songs in question are streamed, played on the radio, sold physically, sampled, or appear in TV/film/commercial placements. Once again, the seller will get a cut each time the asset is sold down the line, making it a rare win-win for both parties involved.” However, It doesn’t appear to have been a win-win for the group.
Tribe member Ali Shaheed Muhammad has attacked the sale of this royalty in a new statement on Facebook, alleging that the Tribe had nothing to do with the decision and that it all originates from a messed-up contract they made early in their career. A Billboard article describing the transaction has since been changed, and Muhammad takes issue with it. The suggestion that they had “partnered” with the Royalty Exchange was particularly offensive to the group. Instead, they claim that the 1.5 % comes from Ron Skoler and Ed Chalpin, two lawyers/agents who represented the band in their initial Jive Records deal.
According to Muhammad, a stipulation in the group’s contract stated that PPX Enterprises, Chalpin’s company, would receive a share of Tribe’s future earnings, which Tribe was unaware of until they began recording their second album, The Low-End Theory. That percentage is what has now become an NFT: “Apparently PPX sold their share of a settlement they made with Jive Records to an individual whom entered into a partnership with Royalty Exchange. Be clear that is the NFT that was created and auctioned.”
In that statement, the band claims that this percentage “should have never been sold by Jive Records” and that if they had known it was out there, they would have bought it back from the company themselves.
