EXCLUSIVE: JR Writer Sues UMG Over Unpaid Royalties From Cam’ron And Juelz Santana Classics

JR Writer sues Universal Music Group for master royalties tied to Cam’ron and Juelz Santana Roc-A-Fella recordings from 2003 and 2004.

JR Writer is taking Universal Music Group to federal court, demanding master royalties and a full accounting from two Roc-A-Fella Records tracks he co-wrote and performed on more than two decades ago.

The Harlem rapper, born Rusty Brito, filed a complaint in the Southern District of New York on June 5 against UMG, alleging accounting and unjust enrichment over two songs: “Shake,” from Cam’ron’s 2004 classic Purple Haze, and “Squalie,” from Juelz Santana’s 2003 debut From Me 2 U.

To be clear, JR Writer is not suing Cam’ron or Juelz Santana. His beef is strictly with UMG, the corporate entity that’s been collecting streaming royalties from those tracks and, according to the suit, keeping his cut.

The complaint lays out a paper trail that’s hard to argue with. JR Writer is listed as a copyright claimant and co-author in U.S. Copyright Office records for both songs, credited as the co-writer of lyrics on “Shake” alongside Cameron Giles, and credited on “Squalie” under his legal middle name, Marcos Brito.

Spotify publicly credits him as a featured artist and co-writer on both tracks across all major DSPs. He’s been collecting ASCAP publishing royalties and SoundExchange performance royalties this whole time, which the suit argues confirms his status as a rights holder.

Starting around April 2025, JR Writer spent nine months going back and forth with UMG’s royalty helpdesk, submitting W-9 forms, bank verification, government ID and ACH wire authorization, everything they asked for.

UMG acknowledged his publishing credits but kept stonewalling on the master side, citing an internal policy requiring an “artist agreement, Letter of Direction or label waivers” before they’d release anything.

The problem, as the complaint points out, is that no such agreement exists. JR Writer never signed a work-for-hire deal or a royalty waiver, and UMG has never produced any instrument transferring his ownership interest, because there is none to transfer. Under federal copyright law, a rights transfer that isn’t documented in a signed written instrument simply doesn’t count.

The suit argues UMG has it completely backward. It’s the party asserting a rights transfer that needs to produce the paperwork, not the artist whose rights are supposedly being transferred.

The same dynamic played out in Cam’ron’s recent legal battle with UMG over J. Cole’s “Ready ’24”, where the issue of credit and royalty accounting at UMG kept surfacing.

JR Writer’s lawyers are seeking a full accounting of all revenues from both tracks since their original commercial release, plus his proportionate share of master and publishing royalties, damages for unjust enrichment, and a court order requiring UMG to properly identify him in its records.

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