Exclusive
One of Post Malone‘s biggest hits, “Circles,” was cowritten by a songwriter who gets zero credit, and even worse … zero money … according to the lawsuit he just filed.
Tyler Armes says he and Post hooked up to write a song in August 2018 — at the encouragement of Post’s manager. What they eventually created was a track that became the monster hit, “Circles” … which went all the way to #1 last year.
According to the docs, obtained by TMZ, Tyler claims he cowrote the chords and the bass line for the song … and had input on other portions, such as the guitar melody. Clearly, his point is … he did more than enough to earn a writing credit.
Instead, Tyler says “Circles” was released on August 30, 2019 … without his name on it. According to the suit, he’d been negotiating with Post’s camp earlier in the month — he claims they offered him 5 percent of publishing royalties with no credit. Tyler says he pushed back for a bigger cut and a cowriting credit, but they told him to kick rocks.
In docs, he claims Post’s manager had a written exchange with him about it, and that the manager even told him Post acknowledged Tyler’s contribution.
That’s nice and all, but as we think Tyler would say … verbal acknowledgment doesn’t pay bills. So, he’s suing Post to get the cowriter credit and a fair cut of past and future royalties on “Circles.”
He’s also suing producer Frank Dukes, who does have a writing credit and, according to Tyler, was present for the 2018 jam session that birthed the track.
We’ve reached out to Post’s camp … no word back yet.
