Epic Records has been accused of not paying a production company close to $200,000 for Travis Scott’s “Wake Up” video. According to Page Six, Smuggler Inc. has sued the label for allegedly failing to pay $187,255 of a $749,000 contracted fee for the visuals.
The Los Angeles-based company claims Epic tried to get the price down to $600,000 despite Smuggler finalizing its $749,000 bid in April 2019. Epic allegedly paid the first installment of $561,766 but refused to pay nearly $200,000 despite Scott’s video being released in July 2019 in support of his Astroworld album.
Smugger’s suit says Epic tried to renegotiate the price or even cancel the entire agreement despite the video being out for three weeks. The suit alleges Epic attempted to do this by saying the visuals didn’t have the right effects, which weren’t part of the original contract.
“Epic never intended to pay Smuggler the final payment as promised in the agreement, and that it looked for, and fabricated, excuses to try to reduce the contract price to an amount below $600,000 as it had repeatedly requested in the negotiations, but which Smuggler repeatedly refused to agree to,” the suit argues.
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Smuggler also aimed to refute notions of the video not being up to par with the words of Scott’s own team.
The multi-platinum selling rapper’s manager saw an initial cut of the video and replied, “Looks fire!” in a group email. The suit says the director received messages about Scott being pleased with the final result as well.
HipHopDX has reached out to Epic for comment. Revisit Scott’s “Wake Up” video below.
