T-Pain signed to Konvict in 2005 and has been trying to get paid correctly for it ever since. On September 4, he filed his second lawsuit against Akon's label in Fulton County Superior Court, and XXL got the documents on Tuesday, September 8. The number is $489,047.76, plus interest and legal fees.
The math
The filing is 80 pages, but the core is simple. On March 30, 2026, Konvict received a $1.3 million royalty payment from Zomba Recordings, the Sony-owned entity that holds T-Pain's catalog from the Rappa Ternt Sanga and Epiphany era. Under his 2005 recording agreement and the 2025 settlement that ended his first lawsuit, T-Pain is entitled to 75% of the net royalties Konvict collects. He says he got nothing.
On June 2, he was told to take it up with BuVision, the company run by Akon's brother Abou "Bu" Thiam. He says he reached out on June 12 and heard nothing back. So he sued. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and theGrio have the rest of the paper.

The relationship this is testing
T-Pain and Akon were the sound of 2006-07 radio. T-Pain wrote "I Can't Wait" and "Holla Holla" on Konvicted; Akon returned the favor on "Bartender." The label deal was the standard one for the time: a superstar signs a kid, the kid becomes bigger than the label, and the paperwork stays the way it was written when the kid was nobody. His first suit, filed in June 2018, took seven years to settle. The ink on that settlement was barely dry before the next check went missing.
What makes this one different is that it isn't a dispute over the terms. Both sides agreed to 75% last year. It's a dispute over whether the label honors a number it already signed. That's a collections case dressed as a music-business story, and collections cases tend to end with a judgment rather than a handshake.
T-Pain has spent the last five years rebuilding as the most transparent artist alive: the Twitch streams, the "I don't own my masters" candor, the Nappy Boy Radio breakdowns of who gets what. This filing is that same transparency with a docket number. Konvict has not responded publicly.
## Sources - T-Pain Sues Akon's Konvict Entertainment for Nearly $500,000 in Unpaid Royalties — XXL (@XXL), Sept. 8, 2026 - T-Pain sues Akon's record label, claiming unpaid royalties — The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Sept. 9, 2026 - T-Pain's royalties lawsuit against Konvict Entertainment — theGrio, Sept. 9, 2026 - T-Pain vs. Akon: The Konvict Lawsuit — Digital Music News, Sept. 10, 2026
