Juice WRLD’s Estate Faces Lawsuit Over Allegedly Unpaid ‘Girl of My Dreams’ Royalties
The estate of the late rapper Juice WRLD is being sued by a music producer named Joshua Jaramillo, who claims he’s owed royalties from the late rapper’s 2021 collab with Suga of BTS.
In a lawsuit filed Wednesday (July 31) in Los Angeles court, Jaramillo says he served as a producer on “Girl of My Dreams,” a 2021 hit that debuted at No. 29 on the Hot 100, and that he was promised a 5% ownership stake and an additional 1% producer royalty.
But “despite repeated requests by plaintiff,” Jaramillo says the estate has not paid him everything he’s owed.
Trending on Billboard
“Plaintiff has performed all services under the contract. ‘Girl of My Dreams’ became a nationwide hit,” Jaramillo’s lawyers write. “Defendant has failed to pay plaintiff the full amount of agreed upon royalties.”
The lawsuit, which is short on details, also claims that the estate has refused to provide a legally-required accounting “to verify that all royalties were paid.”
A rep for the estate could not immediately be reached for comment.
Juice WRLD (Jarad Anthony Higgins), a pioneering voice in emo rap and SoundCloud rap, died of a drug overdose in December 2019 while onboard a private jet flying from Los Angeles to Chicago. Citing law enforcement sources, TMZ reported days later that the rapper swallowed a large number of pills to hide them from federal agents who were waiting for the plane to land.
Released as a promotional single for his posthumous 2021 album, Fighting Demons, “Girl of My Dreams” was a collaboration with South Korean rapper Suga and features lyrics in both English and Korean. Though the track spent just a week on the Billboard Hot 100, Fighting Demons was a bigger hit, spending 72 weeks on the Billboard 200 and peaking at No. 2.
The new case is the second time Juice’s estate has been sued over the past year. In October, an artist named PD Beats filed his own lawsuit claiming he’d served as one of the co-writers of the rapper’s 2021 track “Not Enough” but had not been paid his proper royalties.
That case, which also named “Not Enough” producer Dr. Luke (Lukasz Sebastian Gottwald) as a defendant, remains pending.
