Swae Lee Offers $20K Reward for Missing Hard Drive with Unreleased Music Collection
Rapper Swae Lee has lost a hard drive containing hundreds of unreleased songs at Los Angeles International Airport's Terminal 2, prompting him to offer a $20,000 reward for its return.
Swae Lee wearing yellow beanie
The 27-year-old artist, who had plans to release his album "Human Nature" in January 2021, expressed urgency about recovering the device, stating "I GOT MY WHOLE LIFE ON THAT S--T!!!" The hard drive reportedly contains several hundred unreleased tracks, with Lee previously mentioning plans to release three albums in the coming year.
While Delta Airlines' policy ensures efforts to return lost items, no one has yet claimed the reward or returned the device. Fan reactions suggest the $20,000 reward might be too low, considering Swae Lee's streaming revenue - his 1.1 billion Spotify streams in 2020 alone generated between $3.3-5.5 million in royalties.
This incident recalls similar cases in the music industry. In 2011, Skrillex lost two hard drives in Milan containing unreleased music and project files. More notably, Ryan Leslie's case serves as a cautionary tale - he offered a $1 million reward for his lost laptop in 2010, leading to a legal battle where he was ordered to pay the full amount plus $180,000 in interest when the device was returned, despite missing the sought-after files.
Ramones on stage in concert
Concert crowd inside O2 Arena
This situation highlights the critical importance of data management and backup systems in the music industry, where losing original files can mean losing countless hours of creative work.