A backing vocalist on Wiz Khalifa and Charlie Puth’s chart-topping Furious 7 soundtrack hit “See You Again” is suing Warner Music Group (WMG) and NBCUniversal, alleging he was “cheated out of royalty payments and downstream compensation” for years.
Jake Broido claims in a Thursday (Jan. 29) federal court lawsuit that he provided the so-called gang vocals on “See You Again,” which scored Paul Walker’s famous final scene in 2015’s Furious 7 and reigned atop the Billboard Hot 100 for 12 weeks. But he alleges WMG and NBCUniversal misclassified his contributions on the song’s registration paperwork, ultimately depriving him of royalties and licensing fees.
“It is, of course, not surprising that Broido’s efforts to get paid have been, for a decade, obfuscated and obstructed by Warner,” reads the complaint. “That is the long history of the music industry; to make executives rich at the expense of artists.”
Broido alleges he was working as an administrative staffer at WMG in early 2015 when Puth approached him asking if he could sing gang vocals, a recording technique where voices are layered to sound like crowd noise. Broido, who had been studying gang vocals for years, says he happily went into the studio with Puth and sang what would ultimately become part of “See You Again.”
Session vocalists like Broido are supposed to collect royalties through the AFM & SAG-AFTRA Intellectual Property Rights Distribution Fund. But Broido’s name didn’t make it onto the “See You Again” AFM Fund registration paperwork; instead, the files merely listed “three A&R staffers” as background singers.
Broido alleges that WMG, whose subsidiary Atlantic Records released the Furious 7 soundtrack, deliberately doctored the AFM Fund paperwork because it hadn’t secured a critical work-for-hire agreement from him. According to the lawsuit, WMG wanted to hide this “embarrassing failure” from its studio partners at NBCUniversal.
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The result, alleges Broido, is that he wasn’t paid crucial royalties that should have been distributed to him by the AFM Fund. He says WMG also misclassified “See You Again” as “non-theatrical” on the registration paperwork, which deprived him of the chance to participate in lucrative licensing negotiations.
“Warner Music made misleading statements, partial royalty payments and assurances to Broido that it was pursuing an investigation, including that it would ‘look into this’ and that it would ‘follow up,’ only for Warner Music to ultimately ‘ghost’ Broido,” reads the complaint. “In reality, Warner Music’s assurances were merely a scheme to conceal facts from Broido in an attempt to ‘wait out the clock.’”
Broido is now suing WMG and NBCUniversal for breach of contract, fraud and conspiracy. The lawsuit also levels breach of fiduciary duty claims against the AFM Fund, alleging it was “asleep at the switch” and made “absurd and negligent decisions that allowed Warner Music and NBCUniversal to cheat Broido.”
The background singer is seeking unspecified financial damages through the litigation, as well as a declaration that he is a co-owner of the “See You Again” copyrights.
Reps for WMG, NBCUniversal and the AFM Fund did not immediately return requests for comment on Thursday. Khalifa and Puth are not facing any legal claims in the case.
