Little Richard sold the rights to Tutti Frutti for $50. Elvis recorded it. Pat Boone outsold him with it. Michael Jackson ended up owning it. His own records paid him half a cent a copy. In the video below, he walks onto the Grammy stage in 1988 to present Best New Artist and reads out his own name. Then he explains where the money went. He signed with Specialty Records in 1955. Black artists of that era often got no royalties at all. White artists got 3 to 5%. "Whoever heard of cutting a penny in half," he said later. The label's owner, Art Rupe, paid him that $50. From then on, the label owned his song. His Tutti Frutti hit No. 2 on the R&B chart, the one most white listeners never saw. Boone's version went higher on the pop chart. In 1984 he sued for $112 million in unpaid royalties. It settled out of court. The terms were never made public. A year later Michael Jackson bought the ATV catalog, and Little Richard's songs came with it. He never won a competitive Grammy. In 1993 the Academy gave him a Lifetime Achievement Award. Forty years after Tutti Frutti, TLC sold 10 million albums and filed for bankruptcy. Same business, new decade. Was he robbed, or was half a cent the going rate for a Black artist in 1955? Tomorrow: a bigger name and a worse contract.