ST. LOUIS — Two St. Louis brothers who run a record label are suing Universal Music Group, alleging they're owed millions in royalties from songs on St. Louis rapper Nelly's first two solo albums.

D2, a St. Louis record label started in a local community skating rink and run by twin brothers David and Darren Stith, filed the federal suit Friday afternoon in the Central District of California.

The brothers say they were "directly responsible for finding, nurturing, and bringing to the public the music of" Nelly and the St. Lunatics by introducing them to producer Jason Epperson.

Nelly and five other men formed the rap group St. Lunatics in 1993. The group first found commercial success in 1997 with the song “Gimmie What U Got."

Friday's suit says the brothers eventually signed contracts which gave them the right to collect a percentage of the royalties from the wildly successful albums “Country Grammar” and “Nellyville.” They also had an agreement granting them royalties from certain St. Lunatics songs, the suit says.

"What (Universal) is doing is they're taking the same song and just changing the title," said attorney Jay Kanzler Jr., one of the lawyers representing the brothers. "And so, when you talk about duplicate titles, they are collecting all that money, keeping it and only paying us for the one song."

Kanzler said the title changes can be minor, such as changing "Ride Wit Me" to "Ride With Me," but the consequence leaves D2 paid for one, but not the other.

The suit estimates D2 is owed up to $10 million.

"That's kind of a guesstimate, because you don't know what you don't know until you get the documentation," Kanzler said. "But looking at the number of albums sold, you know, you just kind of extrapolate that out."

Kanzler said the suit asks for two main things. The first being the money owed to D2 on those duplicate song titles.

"Tell us what they are and how much you know you've made off of them, and give us our percentage," he said.

They've also asked Universal Music to provide information on other songs the brothers have royalty rights to.

"So that we can do the analysis to determine whether or not we've been properly paid," Kanzler said. "Because at this point, you've given us nothing."

The suit comes about two months after Nelly was sued by four of his former St. Lunatics group mates, who said they’ve been denied writing credit and royalties for eight songs, most of which are featured on his debut solo album “Country Grammar,” which was released 24 years ago.

In that federal suit, filed in New York, the 50-year-old rapper’s childhood friends said Nelly lied to the group about giving them credit and royalties on eight tracks. At least five of those were included on his first solo album, which became the eighth hip-hop album to reach “diamond status.”

The group members asked for no less than $50 million.

But a letter from Nelly’s longtime lawyer, Scott Rosenblum, said he was contacted by three of the St. Lunatics who told him they did not consent to being named as plaintiffs in the suit. The letter was sent on Sept. 24 to Gail Walton, the attorney who initially filed the suit against Nelly.

An amended complaint filed Friday in that case listed only one group member as a plaintiff: Ali Jones.

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