Low! T-Pain Sues Akon’s Label For $500K In Unpaid Royalties

It’s a shame whenever two artists go from making great music together to being at the top of each other’s proverbial hit lists. While it can make for quite the entertaining back-and-forth in the booth, ultimately it just kills the potential of great collaborations that simply will never be.

Sadly that applies to the ongoing feud between T-Pain and Akon, two megastars of the 2000s hip-hop era that for 12 years worked together under the latter’s Konvict Muzik record label. Now, T-Pain says Konvict owes him roughly half a million dollars for unpaid royalties from a recent million-dollar payout.

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T-Pain claimed in a lawsuit filed in Fulton County Superior Court last week (Sept. 4) that Konvict Entertainment owes him approximately $489,047 based on a $1.3 million royalty payment issued by Zomba Recordings on March 30, 2026. According to XXL, the 80-page filing details his multiple attempts to settle the matter out of court, primarily in contacting BuVision, the indie label ran by music exec and Akon’s younger brother Abou “Bu” Thiam. After unsuccessful attempts to reach Bu in June 2026, T-Pain put the lawsuit in motion.

This comes nearly a decade after the initial 2018 lawsuit T-Pain filed against Konvict Entertainment just a year after officially leaving the label. In that filing, he claimed royalties were due for his first four albums in addition to an advance of at least $200,000 for completing the fifth one before his exit. In it he also includes their original contractual agreement to back up what he feels is due, as well as adding in the many email attempts to contact Konvict. A settlement was eventually reached in 2025 for $114,000, and the current suit is essentially picking up where Konvict allegedly breached in that agreement.

It was all good just 20 years ago.