Tupac Shakur Estate Sued by Death Row Producer Daz Dillinger Over ‘All Eyez On Me’ Royalties
Dillinger co-wrote and produced five songs off the seminal 1996 album, the last Shakur released before his death.
Black News 
Daz Dillinger, a Death Row Records producer who collaborated on much of Tupac Shakur’s seminal final album All Eyez on Me, claims in a new lawsuit that the rap icon’s estate has stiffed him on royalties.
The Friday (May 8) complaint, obtained by Billboard, focuses on royalties from more than a dozen songs co-authored and produced by Dillinger. The list includes five tracks off All Eyez On Me, which topped the Billboard 200 in 1996 and has spent a collective 122 weeks on the chart: “Ambitionz az a Ridah,” “Skandalouz,” “Got My Mind Made Up,” “2 of Amerikaz Most Wanted” and “I Ain’t Mad at Cha.”
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Dillinger (born Delmar Arnaud) alleges in the lawsuit that he last demanded royalties in 2024 and was paid $91,000 by Amaru Entertainment, the arm of Shakur’s estate that manages the late rapper’s music assets. But Dillinger says the estate did not provide any royalty statements to back up this amount — and that he believes there’s additional money still being kept from him.
“At a minimum, Amaru has failed to render statements and/or pay sums due within the applicable limitations periods and continuing to the present,” writes Dillinger’s attorney, Bret Lewis. “The precise amount owed will be shown according to proof after an accounting and discovery.”
The lawsuit asks a judge to force the Shakur estate to provide Dillinger with a full audit of profits and licenses from all the songs he helped create. Dillinger then wants to be paid his allegedly past-due royalties, plus financial damages for breach of contract.
Reached for comment on Monday (May 11), Lewis told Billboard, “It is my expectation that this matter will be amicably resolved.” A rep for Shakur’s estate declined to comment on the lawsuit.
This is far from the first time Dillinger has been involved in legal action over his time at Death Row, where he produced for other artists and was half of the hip-hop duo Tha Dogg Pound with fellow rapper Kurupt. Dillinger has brought various lawsuits over contractual payments through the years against Death Row and its former chief, Suge Knight, plus Sony/ATV Music Publishing and BMG Rights Management.
In 2001, Shakur’s mother, Afeni Shakur, sued Dillinger for allegedly holding onto and threatening to disseminate unreleased Tupac music without the estate’s consent. That case was settled out of court in 2002.
More recently, Dillinger threatened to sue Snoop Dogg, his cousin, over song ownership and royalties from their years of work together, writing on social media last year, “I sued Suge back in the day. Should I do the same to cuz?” Snoop responded with a warning of his own: “In a minute I’ma f— you up, cuz, not physically, but business-wise.”
