Source: Al Pereira / Getty
All the news about A Tribe Called Quest becoming the newest Hip-Hop entity to enter the world of NFT’s is flat-out false, says Ali Shaheed Muhammad in a fiery social media post that reveals another controversy concerning Hip-Hop and cryptocurrency.
The DJ and producer was compelled to speak out at length after a Billboard article last week claimed that the iconic Hip-Hop group entered into a partnership with online music royalties marketplace Royalty Exchange to auction off a 1.5% share of the group’s sound recording royalties from their first five albums. This would be sold off as a non-fungible token (NFT). Dubbing the article as “Not Friggin True,” Muhammad decided to detail exactly why this move wasn’t approved by the group.
“At the time Billboard knew those words were not true but worded the story in a way to gain clicks. They have now changed the article. Other ‘journalistic’ publications took the original newsfeed and ran with the misleading headline. No member of A Tribe Called Quest has entered into any partnership with Royalty Exchange. PERIOD!”, Muhammad wrote.
The Lucy Pearl founder then went on to clarify that PPX Enterprise, the company that represented the group in their negotiations with Jive Records, put a clause in the agreement that gave them a percentage of their royalties. The group found out about the clause while recording The Low End Theory and disputed the clause, enlisting Jive’s aid on the record label’s condition that the group re-sign with them and do a sixth album, which they did. PPX would wind up losing the lawsuit.
Billboard would go on to correct the article. At last report by music magazine NME, the NFT was auctioned off to a bidder named Stephen F. on July 1st for 40.191 etherium (ETH), which is equivalent to $92,530.
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