Max Romeo’s Family To Press On With $15M Suit Against US Labels After Singer’s Death

The family of Reggae legend Maxie ‘Max Romeo’ Smith has signaled its intention to press on with his US$15 million lawsuit against Universal Music Group (UMG) and Polygram Publishing, despite his death in April this year at age 80.

“We will continue the case,” Romeo’s daughter Azanette Smith told DancehallMag, adding that the “case won’t die”.

The family’s lawyers have submitted a letter to the New York Supreme Court, asking the Judge to stay the matter due to Romeo’s passing in St. Andrew, Jamaica. They have also filed his Jamaica-issued death certificate with the Court. According to the letter, UMG and Polygram concurred in the request for a stay while the parties sort out next steps.

The letter outlined the path forward: Romeo’s family has begun administering his estate in Jamaica and is arranging for an executor to be appointed. After that, they plan to petition New York’s Surrogate’s Court to appoint a fiduciary with limited powers for this litigation, then move to substitute the estate for Romeo as plaintiff.

Ms. Smith, who is one of those tipped to be appointed an executor, declined to discuss specifics of probate. “With everything that happened this year, we are still processing my father’s death,” she said. (Probate validates the will, administers the estate, and distributes assets in line with its instructions.)

At the time of Romeo’s death, two motions were awaiting the judge’s decision: UMG’s motion to dismiss the amended complaint and Romeo’s motion for leave to file a second amended complaint. Both were fully briefed in 2024 and are expected to be renewed once the stay is lifted.

First filed in 2022, Romeo’s suit has alleged decades of unpaid royalties and improper exploitation tied to his albums War Ina Babylon (1976) and Reconstruction (1977)—released under contracts with Island Records and Island Music—which include signature tracks such as Chase the Devil and War Ina Babylon. PolyGram later acquired the Island companies from Christopher Blackwell, and UMG subsequently acquired PolyGram.

Romeo has claimed that Island paid him only JMD $2,500, about US$16 at the time, as an advance, even though he was allegedly entitled to a combined US$22,500 in advances: 50% of US$15,000 for War Ina Babylon (with producer Lee “Scratch” Perry) and US$15,000 for the self-produced Reconstruction.

He further alleged UMG made its first royalty payment to him only in September 2021 (US$113,085), which he says failed to account for many years of exploitation, including compilations, and improperly deducted advances that were never paid.

According to the complaint, more than ten years of recording royalty statements and 29 years of publishing statements were missing from the materials first provided in 2021—some from the first five years after release, described as “the most lucrative for earnings.”

Romeo also pointed to unpaid royalties from samples by artists such as The Prodigy and Jay-Z, and from film and video-game placements, including Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.

In addition to breaches of the two contracts, Romeo accused UMG of a pattern of “fraudulent concealment,” alleging a practice of failing to send royalty statements which he claimed was “especially prevalent when it came to reggae artists, who were Black.”

In court filings, Romeo alleged that Island would change an artist’s address to “unknown” or “no address” as a pretext to stop sending statements and payments. He added that he had not changed his address in Jamaica for decades.

The Reggae artist also alleged that royalty staffers at the company would hang up or provide inaccurate information when he called, sometimes claiming they could not understand Jamaican accents.

UMG and Polygram are being represented by Pryor Cashman LLP, the same law firm that represents the majority of the Reggaetón artists and record companies in Steely & Clevie’s massive copyright infringement lawsuit.

The two companies have sought to dismiss the case, arguing that the breach-of-contract claims fell outside New York’s six-year statute of limitations. They also argued that Romeo’s amended complaint lacked specifics about when the alleged contractual breaches occurred, which royalty statements were in question, and which contract provisions were violated. 

Romeo’s attorneys have countered that the statute should be tolled (not applied) because, they allege, UMG’s long-running failure to provide statements prevented him from understanding and asserting his rights for more than four decades.

Meanwhile, the Smith family is in the middle of completing the Max Romeo tribute tour in Europe with shows such as Festival Musicas do Mundo in Sines, Portugal, and stops in Boechout, Belgium, and the communes of Vitry-sur-Seine and St. Malo in France. The tour ends on August 9.

“The tour will be the first in a line of things to honour my father’s legacy. He worked on an album before he died, we have a lot of great features, such as some with Xana, Azizzi and Capleton. We are considering changing the proposed name of the album, The Last Hurrah, to honour him better,” Ms. Smith said.