Chris Brown "Party" Producer Sues Sony Music for $1.25M Over Delayed Royalty Sale

Ishmael Sadiq Montague, who co-produced Chris Brown's 2016 single "Party" under the name ISM, has filed a lawsuit against Sony Music Entertainment seeking at least $1,247,500.

Montague alleges that Sony made false statements to delay the transfer of his royalties to a company that had agreed to purchase them. He also claims Sony has been paying him only half of the producer royalty he is owed on the track, which features Usher and Gucci Mane.

The complaint was filed on October 16 in a New York federal court. Montague is representing himself.

According to the filing, Montague and co-producer A1 signed a producer agreement for "Party" with Brown's company, Chris Brown Entertainment LLC, on November 1, 2016. RCA Records released the song in December 2016, and it later appeared on Brown's 2017 album Heartbreak on a Full Moon.

The agreement set a 3% producer royalty, with Montague's share at 1.5% after his split with A1. The complaint says Sony has paid that royalty directly to Montague's company, SE7EN INTL LLC, for almost a decade.

On June 25, 2026, Montague agreed to sell his royalty interests in several recordings, including "Party," to a buyer identified in the complaint as Xposure Music Holdings Inc. Under the deal, Sony's payments from September 1, 2026, were to be redirected to the buyer.

Montague alleges Sony stalled the change for six weeks, hindering the sale. During that time, Sony allegedly required him to sign a letter of direction, the document instructing a label on whom to pay, using its own form. The complaint says Sony's representatives described the requirement as "rigid" and "unchangeable" company policy.

The complaint states that the form would have required the payee to acknowledge having no right to audit Sony or any of its affiliates or subsidiaries. Montague counts RCA Records and Chris Brown Entertainment LLC among those entities, calling them "the very entities whose accounting of the account was in question."

On July 24, a Sony representative wrote that the company had "not received direction from the artists" regarding Montague's royalties on "Party," the complaint states. That afternoon, the same representative allegedly wrote that Sony was "not accounting to the producer already," and that "if Sony had previously accepted it, there would already be an account."

"Both statements were false, and Sony knew them to be false," the complaint claims, citing Sony's own earnings statements, which show direct payments to Montague on "Party" since at least 2020.

In a July 28 reply, Sony confirmed that "we are accounting on the Chris Brown track," but did not concede that its earlier statements were incorrect, according to the complaint.

The complaint further alleges that Sony already had an alternative form on file, one Montague was prepared to sign, while telling him the terms could not be changed. File metadata on that document, a Producer Royalty Assignment Form, shows it was created by a Sony Music employee on August 13, the filing says.

Sony's representatives allegedly repeated that the terms were unchangeable on August 17 and August 24. The metadata shows the form was last modified on the evening of August 24, the day Montague escalated the matter to Sony's Office of the General Counsel.

Montague refused the letter of direction in writing at 9:07am Pacific time on August 25. At 10:28am that morning, Sony sent him the alternative form as a substitute, noting it "has not yet been officially rolled out to all royalty participants," according to the complaint.

The filing says the form omitted the language Montague had objected to, and he signed it on August 29. It contains no release or waiver, the complaint adds.

Montague also claims Sony applied financial pressure during the same period. According to the complaint, an offer made on August 24 tied part of the money owed to him under the sale to his acceptance of Sony's demanded payment direction, with the threat that payment would be withheld longer if he refused. The buyer, Xposure Music Holdings, confirmed the arrangement that evening, the filing says.

"The pressure was wrongful," the complaint states. "Requirements that survive six weeks of informed, written objection from plaintiff's manager and the counsel he was paying were never requirements – they were positions of convenience, held while holding them was costless and abandoned once they had served their purpose.

"The objection of plaintiff's authorized representatives was plaintiff's own objection, and Sony had no basis to treat it as less."

Montague argues the delay was designed to secure the audit waiver. "The concealment served a purpose," the complaint states. "The longer the nonexistent requirements held, the more likely the acknowledgment Sony demanded – that the payee has no right to audit Sony or any of its affiliates or subsidiaries – would be executed.

"The underpayment plaintiff reported in writing on August 25, 2026, on the account Sony was directing, makes the value of that acknowledgment to Sony apparent."

The second part of the case concerns the alleged underpayment. "Separately, Sony has applied a producer rate on the Party master at half the agreed rate: 0.75% rather than the 1.5% to which plaintiff is entitled after the split with co-producer A1 (3% gross)," the complaint states.

A third-party review identified the discrepancy in July 2026, according to the filing. Montague reported it to Sony in writing on August 25, estimating the shortfall at roughly 50% on the most recent statement period. The complaint does not assign a dollar figure to the alleged underpayment.

Montague is seeking at least $1,247,500 in compensation, plus punitive damages on his fraud claims. "The compensation sought is not a computation of royalties; it is what the conduct cost, and what it would have cost Sony to obtain those concessions honestly," the complaint states.

He is also asking the court to order a full accounting and a court-supervised audit, at Sony's expense, of his Sony account and of any other recordings in which he holds or may hold a royalty stake.

The complaint lists seven claims, including fraud, interference with the sale of his royalties, and a claim under a New York law prohibiting deceptive business practices.

According to the filing, Montague sent Sony's legal department a notice of claim on October 13. Two days later, Sony's in-house counsel denied liability, arguing there was no direct contract between the company and Montague.

"Sony now describes the matter as 'fully resolved.' It is not," the complaint states.

Sony has been approached for comment.

The suit follows other royalty claims filed against Sony in the same New York court this year. In July, Jermaine Dupri and his So So Def companies sued for more than $18 million, alleging years of unpaid and underreported royalties, including producer royalties, on records by artists such as Kris Kross, Xscape, and Da Brat. Dupri dropped the suit on August 28, telling the court the parties had "resolved the matter."

The band Lit settled its streaming royalty suit against Sony in July, four months after claiming it was owed more than $800,000 under a 1998 contract with RCA. Terms were not disclosed in either case.

Montague's complaint does not state how much Xposure Music Holdings agreed to pay or describe the company further, though it says the deal's profit-share terms depended partly on Sony's accounting of the "Party" royalties.

A music financing company called Xposure Music, founded in Montreal in 2021, secured $42.5 million in debt and equity funding last December to acquire more independent music catalogs. That round followed its partnership with distributor Too Lost, under which the two companies co-fund catalog acquisitions that Xposure sources and underwrites.

All quoted statements are unchanged. Since this is based on Music Business Worldwide's reporting, I'd suggest crediting them as the source when you publish.