Twista is sequestered in Atlanta, where he is recording a third solo album after settling with parties that included his former label Creator’s Way Associated Labels (CWAL) in a copyright infringement lawsuit that was holding up his signing a solo album deal with Atlantic Records estimated at approximately $6 million.
According to highly placed sources in the Chicago rapper’s Legit Ballin’ Records camp, attorneys for Atlantic and CWAL agreed to an undisclosed settlement at a meeting in New York City approximately two weeks.
“It’s all good,” a Legit Ballin’ source, who asked not to be identified, said Monday. “With the money he’s getting from Atlantic, Twista will be in good enough shape to pay off his legal bills and put Legit Ballin’ on point.”
Legendary Traxster confirmed in an interview last week that CWAL and Atlantic were suing Twista in U.S. District Court in Manhattan for allegedly bootlegging music published through a six-album deal between the two labels and Atlantic’s Big Beat imprint that lasted from 1997-’99 before Twista left to become a principal partner in Legit Ballin’. Twista had also begun bankruptcy proceedings in a New York state court to get out of a contract that bound him to completing the five remaining albums. Twista had faced an estimated $150,000 in copyright infringement damages, court costs, and attorneys fees, and Burton and Brinson’s concurrence with the settlement would mean that Trax has been outvoted on his plans to maintain a hold on Twista as a sort of sharecropping act with CWAL Mob.
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Twista’s album-in-progress LP album Kamikaze—which was supposed to be the title of the rapper’s second CWAL album according to Traxster—is expected to include high-profile guest appearances by the likes of Kid Rock and Dr. Dre. The completed master for the album must reportedly be turned in within three weeks for Atlantic to release by autumn. Meanwhile, Atlanta and New York City sources say Manhattan-based Family Tree Entertainment and Boss Lady Entertainment, which represent Chicago-originating R&B crooner Donnell Jones, is shopping an individual deal for Legit Ballin’ Records. Family Tree and Boss Lady head Barkue Tubman did not return phone calls.
Atlantic A&R’s and urban publicist Chrissy Murray and were not available to confirm or deny that Twista had directly inked a deal with Atlantic. Unfortunately neither, a spokesperson for Legit Ballin’, Family Tree, and Miss Boss Lady could be reached for comment.
