EXCLUSIVE: MC Money & Gangsta Gold Say Producer Stole Royalties From Their Memphis Classics; Demand Over $500K

Memphis rap duo MC Money and Gangsta Gold say DJ Sound collected money from the phonk revival built on their voices and lyrics, then kept them in the dark about the full amount.

Christy Coran, known as Gangsta Gold, and Latonya Pierce, known as MC Money, filed a federal lawsuit in Memphis against Carlos Duan Perry, the producer better known as DJ Sound. The women claim they helped create the music on their 1995 cassette album Da Hard Ov Frayser, but Perry later licensed and reissued the material without fully paying them or opening the books.

The complaint seeks at least $500,000, though it says the real figure could be much higher once the duo gets a full accounting of the catalog. Perry has not yet filed a response in court.

The lawsuit says phonk artists began sampling their old Memphis recordings decades after release, turning a local cassette-era catalog into a global streaming commodity. The women claim their lyrics and vocal performances appeared in the sampled songs, yet Perry presented himself as the person with authority to clear the material.

“[MC Money and Gangsta Gold] believe the partial payments represent only a small fraction of what they are owed,” the verified complaint states. “[MC Money and Gangsta Gold] bring this action to establish their rights and recover the proceeds Perry received from exploiting their music.”

One alleged 2024 deal sits at the center of the case. The women claim Perry signed an agreement covering at least 30 sample clearances for LXST CXNTURY and RHODAMINE. The complaint says it included a $100,000 fee for master use and a 50% publishing stake in the new songs. The filing says Perry did not disclose the agreement, payments or publishing interests.

The duo points to records including “Space Attack,” “War,” “Kyoto” and “Lunacy,” alleging the songs replay their vocals in long passages. The lawsuit also cites MC ORSEN’s “Warning,” which samples “Glock-Tight Smoked-Out.” The complaint says “Warning” and its sped-up and slowed-down versions have generated more than one billion streams worldwide.

“Perry did not recognize any share of those interests as belonging to [MC Money and Gangsta Gold], compensate them for the portions attributable to their material, or provide the agreement, proof of payment, registrations, royalty records, or allocation methodology,” the complaint says.

The filing acknowledges that Perry made partial payments. It says each artist initially received about $2,000, then roughly $400 apiece in 2025. Later payments brought Gangsta Gold’s total to about $13,799.86 and MC Money’s to about $13,647.90. They say the checks came without a deal-by-deal explanation of what money came in or how their shares were calculated.

MC Money and Gangsta Gold came out of North Memphis’ Frayser Click, the DJ Sound-led collective that also included a young Yo Gotti, then known as Lil Yo. Their DJ Sound-produced Da Hard Ov Frayser was one of the early full-length releases by women in the Memphis rap scene, as Reverb’s history of the city’s tape era notes. Originally self-issued on cassette in 1995, the album was officially reissued on vinyl in 2024 by Now-Again Records.

That reissue is another part of the dispute. The women say it used their names and likenesses without their approval while listing the release as licensed by DJ Sound. They are asking a jury to recognize their ownership stakes, order a complete accounting and require Perry to turn over whatever money and publishing interests are owed.