Legendary hip-hop group A Tribe Called Quest calls reports of them partnering with Royalty Exchange for an NFT auction false.
The New York rap group says they never partnered with Royalty Exchange to auction off their first five albums as NFTs.
The group’s co-founder, Ali Shaheed Muhammad called the reports “not Frigging True,” in a long statement on Facebook.
On June 29, 2021 Billboard wrote an article that stated ‘Royalty Exchange has partnered with A Tribe Called Quest to auction off 1.5% share of the sound recording royalties from the hip-hop group’s first five studio albums.’ At the time, Billboard knew those words were not true but worded the story in a way to gain clicks. They have now changed the article. Other ‘journalistic’ publications took the original newsfeed and ran with the misleading headline.
Ali then highlighted, “No member of A Tribe Called Quest has entered into any partnership with Royalty Exchange. PERIOD!”
The partnership was said to include 1990’s People’s Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm, 1991’s The Low End Theory, 1993’s Midnight Marauders, 1996’s Beats, Rhymes and Life, and 1998’s The Love Movement.
Muhammad says that PPX Enterprises, which owned as small percentage of their royalities, sold their share to a group that partnered with Royalities Exchange. “Had we known this percentage of our art was out there we would have bought it directly from PPX Enterprises as it should have never been sold by Jive Records,” he added.
