Summer Walker is trying to walk away from the deal she signed at 19. Now both of her labels are suing her

Summer Walker signed her first record deal at 19. Nine years and a run of hit albums later, she is in court trying to get out of it, and the companies on the other side of the contract are now suing her back.

LVRN, the Atlanta label and management company that signed her in September 2017, has filed a 14-page counterclaim in Fulton County Superior Court in Georgia. It denies her claims that it mishandled her money and asks the court to throw out her case. Then it goes further: it says Walker breached their agreement and owes it money.

“At no time has LVRN acted in bad faith,” the filing says.

What does LVRN say she owes?

The counterclaim names three streams of income. LVRN says Walker has not paid it 15 per cent of the income from business opportunities it secured for her, or 20 per cent of her songwriting performance royalties. It also says she agreed to give it 7 per cent of the proceeds from her 2026 Finally Over It tour, paid that share at first, and then stopped.

LVRN wants damages to be set at trial, and it wants its legal fees, arguing that Walker has acted in bad faith and been “stubbornly litigious”. None of these claims has been tested in court.

How did this start?

Walker went first. In August she sued LVRN for breach of fiduciary duty, breach of contract and fraudulent concealment. Her suit claims the label diverted money that was meant for her touring, recording, marketing and merchandise budgets, failed to pay her what she was owed from Amazon and YouTube pages using her name and likeness, and kept the finances from her. It says she put her trust in the label as a 19-year-old artist.

She wants the court to declare her 2017 agreement with LVRN “void and unenforceable”, along with damages. Her team also sent notice, effective 27 August, that she would stop working under the contract because it was no longer enforceable. LVRN denies all of her claims.

Why is Interscope involved?

Two months after signing with LVRN, on 1 November 2017, Walker signed an expanded joint-venture deal with Interscope, the Universal Music Group label that has released her records.

Walker is relying on California’s “seven-year rule”, which stops personal service contracts from binding anyone for more than seven years. The rule has a catch written in for the music business: a label can sue an artist who leaves for the albums they never delivered.

That is exactly what Interscope did. Its complaint, filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court on 9 October, says the 2017 agreement and its amendments require five studio albums. It argues that Last Day of Summer and CLEAR, the 2018 mixtape and EP that first made her name, were “pre-album projects” that do not count. It is seeking at least US$50 million, with the final figure to be set at trial. A hearing is set for April.

Interscope has said it hopes talks lead to an amicable outcome, that the statutory deadline made filing necessary to protect the contract, and that it values Walker’s music.

What does Walker’s side say?

Her lawyer, Keith Moten, said LVRN’s counterclaim does not deal with the core of her case or reduce the label’s duty to account for what it did. He said it was disappointing to see LVRN chasing more money from the artist whose work helped build it, and that Walker strongly disputes the claims.

On Interscope, Moten said Walker will defend the case and plans to countersue the label, while staying open to a constructive resolution. Her manager, Aubrey Banks, said Walker would keep standing up for herself and other artists, and that musicians deserve the same fairness and transparency as people in any other profession.

Why does it matter beyond one singer?

Walker is one of the biggest R&B artists of the decade. Still Over It went to No. 1 on the Billboard 200 in 2021, and her Over It albums made her one of the defining voices of the streaming era.

Her case tests a question every young artist signs away early: how many albums is “enough” to be free? If the court agrees with Interscope that early mixtapes and EPs do not count, artists who build their names on free and cheaper projects could find their contracts running years longer than they expect. If Walker wins, it gives every artist trying to use the seven-year rule a new argument.