Originally Posted by
Dapper D
Combat Jack (ex hip hop entertainment lawyer) Bogged about it...
http://daily-math.com/weblog/?p=1033#more-1033
The lawyer in me hates $+$# like this. As posted everywhere, Liza Rios, widow of the late, great Christopher Rios p/k/a "Big Pun" is crying broke, telling how she and her kids are living in a shelter and putting Fat Joe on blast, alleging that he somehow ganked her for royalties earned in connection with records released by Pun. She states "financial woes have forced her and her kids to live in a city shelter. Rios says that she received $160k in royalties from her late husband's music, but that those funds were quickly used up in mortgage payments and childcare."
Of course, Joe immediately responded: "Immediately after Pun's death I gave Liza Rios the whole advance of the Endangered Species album, NO ONE but Liza made a dollar off that album. I also gave her the total advance from the publishing company that was due to Big Pun.
I've never made a dollar off Big Pun since his passing. This was hundreds of thousands of dollars of frivolous spending, after the second payoff I washed my hands. Since then we have been through 6 lawyers, harassment on various radio stations and online mediums every time she needs more money. I also have legal documents stating that NO ONE is making money off of Big Pun.
I sympathize with Liza, but I have already done enough for her. In these economic times we as parents need to be resilient and do what it takes to provide for our own families."
$160,000??? Let's do some effin math. Pun was signed to Terror Sqaud was signed to Relativity Records was signed to Sony. When Joe signed Pun, as a new artist, Joe probably received anywhere from $50,000 to $150,000 of which Pun probably received anywhere from $25,000 to $75,000, depending of course on the size and nature of Joe's deal with Relativity. Let's meet in the middle and say $50,000. Not much but believe me, as a new artist in the mid 1990's, that's not bad for a rapper with NO TRACK RECORD. Pun's first album, Capital Punishment sells over 1,000,000 units [||] and is certified platinum. Like I've said before, back in the '90's certified platinum wasn't all that, it just got an artist in the game and convinced the label that that act was worth at least a second album. That's all that meant. No Bentley's, no planes, yachts or mansions, just a second bite at the apple. So after sales, Sony takes their cut from the top, and trust, their cut is significant. Whatever bits of dough is left gets paid to Relativity. Relativity recoups EVERYTHING from Terror Squad, videos, travel, promotion, wardrobe, recording costs, Joe and Pun's sizable eating expenses, EVERYTHING and then some. So now the dough is looking like pretzel bits which then goes to Terror Squad to break up. TS takes them pretzel bits and tries to soak up whatever expenses they paid directly to Pun, like his initial advance which I said would be around $50k, and after whatever's left they pay him an additional $50k. So let's add that $50k to the number I said before. Big Pun is walking around with about $100k in connection with his first album. If TS did a co-publishing deal with Pun, meaning they shared in his publishing income, Pun prolly received another $25-$50k on top of the $100k. Let's round that out to $130k. Throw in some show money in which Pun might have been billing at least $10k per show and Pun while alive was making some serious coin. Off course you have to factor his manager's fee which was most likely 20% of all them above-referenced figures. Then there's always that new artist factor, how almost EVERY new artist that comes into some new money automatically blows that $+$# on the frivolous car, jewelry, eats, wife and mistress expenses, plus mad visits to Sue's Rendevous. Trust that Liza had no complaints when $+$# was popping, other than them gun butting incidents.
Everybody being happy at the success of Capital Punishment, Pun's lawyers, having more leverage, come at Joe, TS and Relativity hard [||] to re-negotiate Pun's deal. Relativity ponies up more money for TS, Joe gets a stack and Pun probably walks away with anywhere from $100 - $250k up front for his second project. Pun passes on February 7th, 2000 and because he's not around to put the work in necessary to effectively promote his second record Yeeeah Baby, released shortly after on April 4, 2000, the album under performs and sells over 500,000 units, certified as a gold album. If platinum was meh in the '90's, gold status most definitely pissed off the TI's in the Sony building. Pissed at the fact that Pun walked away with a sizeable advance and expenses (more costly videos, bigger marketing and promotion costs, etc) that they were not in a position to recoup from. Well, Sony most likely did recoup dollar for dollar with profit, but how them deals are structured from the top down, even if they made money, Relativty, TS and Pun were most likely unrecouped. You still with me?
Joe, still mourning the death of his compadre and main bread winner, plus having some un-released masters featuring performances of Pun fights with Relativty and Sony on TS and Pun's behalf to honor the remainder of Pun's renegotiated agreement to release a third album and pay Pun's estate whatever advances monies Pun would have received had he still been alive. Sony trying to maximize on sales, as well as Relativity agree and pony up $160k to Liza Rios for Pun's third and last album Endangered Species, released on April 3, 2001. Endangered Species as we all know, tanks and sells brick. Joe, TS, Relativity and Sony make no money, Liza Rios is eating steak with that arroz con pollo. Ten years later she pops up crying broke.
People, I've seen these scenarios hundreds of times. Different actors, but always the same script. Not that I'm heartless in connection with ole girl's current woes, but that $+$# is nothing new. Not saying Joe is any types of angel, but like that other man said, men lie, women lie, numbers don't.
No shots were fired in the making of this post.
UPDATE: There's some stating that Big Pun was signed initially to Loud/ RCA. That's what I remember as well but all I'm pulling up in my research for this post is that the Pun records fall under Relativity/Sony. As there was a corporate merge between Sony and BMG (RCA's parent company) in 2004, all Pun records are listed as being released within in the Sony system. Still and all, the numbers breakdown remain the same. I take my work here at the Daily Mathematics very seriously.
As should Peter Rosenberg. SHOTS!
