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Mano Sundaresan, founder of the music blog No Bells, will take on the role of Head of Editorial Content for Pitchfork, the publication announced on Tuesday (July 2).
He joins during a fraught time for media — numerous publications have laid off staff in the last 18 months — and for Pitchfork in particular. In January, parent company Condé Nast folded Pitchfork into GQ and cut a number of longtime staffers, including Puja Patel, who had served as editor in chief since 2018. The backlash was swift: The Washington Post declared “the end of Pitchfork,” while The Guardian called the move “a travesty for music media” and many publications ran postmortems eulogizing the venerated site.
“I understand what the concern was — [people thought] this really important media outlet was going away,” Will Welch, global editorial director of GQ and Pitchfork, tells Billboard. “It was a misunderstanding. It’s not going away, and in so many ways, it’s getting all this new energy.”
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That starts with Sundaresan. In 2021, stuck at home during the pandemic, he decided to launch No Bells. “Everybody in quarantine had their little hobby,” he tells Billboard in his first interview since taking the job. Some took up baking bread; he started a site to house some of his stories — “mostly about these undercover online music scenes” — that weren’t being accepted by the remaining publications in a rapidly-thinning music media landscape.
“It was initially me doing everything: writing, editing, designing a bit,” Sundaresan recalls. “But then I brought on some friends and made it more of an actual publication.”
As No Bells grew, it “started to gain a bit of authority,” he continues. “We definitely became a voice for the underground rap scene in New York, and in Milwaukee, and in these various micro-communities that were popping off.”
Sundaresan, who also worked previously at NPR and freelanced for several sites, spoke with Billboard about his plans for Pitchfork‘s future, in an interview alongside Welch. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.
What did you learn building No Bells that you’re hoping to implement at Pitchfork?
Sundaresan: What I’m bringing to Pitchfork is essentially the adaptability and experimentation that comes with trying to start a music blog in the 2020s. It’s really hard. It requires not only publishing interesting stuff but also seeing where your audience is and cultivating that. We didn’t have any type of legacy to hinge on.
Pitchfork is interesting because it obviously has this authority [built] over two decades now. It’s also got a bevy of incredibly talented writers, and I think we’re in this age where we turn to individual tastemakers for validation when we’re curious about new music. I think more care needs to be put into building worlds around those tastemakers. That’s kind of what I was doing at No Bells, and that’s what I’m going to try to do at Pitchfork.
Are there other new directions or priorities you’re interested in?
Sundaresan: I’m definitely trying to honor the traditions of Pitchfork as-is. They’ve done so much over the past few years, especially with broadening the accessibility, making it more conversational. I want to continue those efforts. Really, my focus is to try to adapt Pitchfork to the modern age of media, where individual voices are prioritized. We can tap into the incredible writers that are on staff and try to build verticals and columns around what they’re doing — cater to more specialized audiences that way, and younger audiences that way.
What does it mean for Pitchfork to be folded under GQ? What’s different now compared to a year ago?
Welch: Pitchfork is still continuing as Pitchfork and GQ is continuing as GQ. I’m now leading both, and very excited to have Mano working on the Pitchfork project with me. And there are ways that we are sharing efforts on the back end — operational stuff, logistical stuff. We just had a really cool meeting last week, where it was GQ editors sharing what they’re excited about in music looking ahead at the rest of the year, and then the Pitchfork editors doing the same. There are conversations like that happening, but the Pitchfork brand is continuing standalone, and GQ is continuing standalone as well.
This new chapter is taking place after a round of layoffs that got a lot of attention. What led to the layoffs, and what do those mean for the future of the publication?
Welch: I’ve been a reader of Pitchfork for 20-plus years. I started my career at The Fader, another music magazine that was sort of at its peak around the time that Pitchfork was really thriving. There was always a [dynamic of] looking across the road at what the other was doing. It’s an honor to have the opportunity to actually work on Pitchfork and to lead the team. They have done an awesome job in the time since January; we’ve been continuing to publish at a great clip. There’s been a lot happening in music, really exciting, emerging music that the site has covered — as it always has, going all the way back to the beginning — and then a bunch of huge releases as well.
Mano had such a clear vision for really what drives music conversation today, what all of us who are on the internet every day want to see. That just clarified for me what the future should be. Now we get to lead a conversation with a team of staff members and contributors about how we apply what Mano articulated: What should we keep exactly the same, and what can we do in new ways, especially as we think about all the platforms at our disposal.
It’s really hard for musicians right now. The way things are set up can be really beneficial to the huge acts, and it can be really hard for the middle and for the younger acts. And I think a huge part of Pitchfork‘s role is supporting that whole ecosystem, especially new artists and people that are in that difficult middle ground.
Sundaresan: One thing that’s working really well with No Bells is the way we’ve built a community around what we do — writers certainly, but also artists. Pitchfork at one point, before it got bigger, was very community-driven. I want to try and restore some of that feeling, getting back to being literally on the ground reporting about things, creating physical spaces for writers, whether that’s live events, readings, panels. I want to create more of a real community around this really robust online ecosystem that Pitchfork already has.
Even before the layoffs, it felt like Pitchfork started running fewer reviews and moved them down the homepage. The New York Times was historically focused on reviews but it has moved away from them as well. Do you still believe that format has value?
Sundaresan: I feel like every few months the album-review-is-dead conversation pops up. For every discourse around that, you see 18,000 more people posting that Taylor Swift got like a 6.2 or whatever it is. Album reviews, especially for some of these really big releases, are pored over by fans. Some of the highest-performing things on the Pitchfork website are still album reviews.
And I think there’s still such a necessity, from a historical record standpoint, for album reviews. You see with platforms like Tiktok and Instagram Reels — they’re really important, and I think Pitchfork really needs to tap into them more and create more interesting content around them — but there’s only so much you can do. You need comprehensive writing of some sort about these really important releases, just so that in five or 10 years, somebody can come back and see this is what happened at this time.
Welch: I would also add that if other outlets have moved on from reviews, and Pitchfork is still known as the place that’s really committed to that form, then that’s a position of strength for us. The foundation of the site is news and reviews, and that can and should continue. And then we’re going to do a bunch of other cool stuff too.
Is there a tension between trying to document some of these smaller scenes and the need to generate traffic? It seems like people have moved away from covering some of the niches because they’re all fighting for the same mainstream clicks.
Welch: We live in a world where audience matters, traffic matters. At Conde Nast, we have KPIs for audience just like any other media brand on Earth. But I think there’s a huge opportunity to evolve the Pitchfork ecosystem. When that’s done effectively, and I think GQ is a good example of this, your business does not live and die based on pure raw traffic.
Broadly right now in internet media, relative to other phases that I’ve been in, this is not a time of traffic as the be-all, end-all. Without taking it to a naive extreme, Mano’s directive is not to chase traffic. It’s to build a really high quality website. And then we’re going to be collaborating with the rest of the team on building out the Pitchfork ecosystem. Mano referenced events — I think that’s incredibly important. Thinking in new ways about the social platforms, there’s just so much you can do, so many different ways to not just mean something to your audience, but also to bring revenue into the brand that isn’t about raw traffic.
Sundaresan: You nailed it. Tent-pole reviews are always going to matter. But No Bells to some extent was about, “Let’s create this ecosystem around online music scenes.” We didn’t always have the highest readership. That wasn’t our goal. But we were able to sustain ourselves just by having very loyal readers because they cared about the things that we cared about.
I think Pitchfork has a potential to essentially do that tenfold, and have different pockets that cater to specific audiences, almost like subcultures, that are spearheaded by genre specialists — which, by the way, Pitchfork already has. The resources just haven’t been put in those directions yet.
After the layoffs, I’m sure you saw there was just a wave of pieces basically saying that Pitchfork was dead. Do you have any response to those?
Welch: Just that Pitchfork is still continuing as Pitchfork. I feel confident in my ability to lead the title, and I think we have an incredibly exciting new voice, new thinker — it wasn’t until I talked to Mano that it really crystallized what I thought the future of Pitchfork should be. He’s bringing this very of-the-moment perspective: This is how people want to talk about music. All the tools are there, we just need to adjust the dials a little bit, do some new things. And I think there’s an opportunity for Pitchfork to really grow and feel fresher than ever.
The judge overseeing the racketeering and gang prosecution against Young Thug and others on Monday put the long-running trial on hold until another judge rules on requests by several defendants that he step aside from the case.
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Lawyers for the rapper and several other defendants had filed motions seeking the recusal of Fulton County Superior Court Chief Judge Ural Glanville after he held a meeting with prosecutors and a prosecution witness at which defendants and defense attorneys were not present. They said the meeting was “improper” and said the judge and prosecutors tried to pressure the witness, who had been granted immunity, into giving testimony.
Jurors, who were already on a break until July 8, would be notified that they will not be needed until the matter is resolved, Glanville said.
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This is the latest delay in the trial that has dragged on for over a year, in part because of numerous problems. Jury selection in the case began in January 2023 and took nearly 10 months. Opening statements were in November and the prosecution has been presenting its case since then, calling dozens of witnesses.
Young Thug, a Grammy winner whose given name is Jeffery Williams, was charged two years ago in a sprawling indictment accusing him and more than two dozen other people of conspiring to violate Georgia’s anti-racketeering law. He also is charged with gang, drug and gun crimes and is standing trial with five of the others indicted with him.
Glanville last month held Young Thug’s attorney Brian Steel in contempt for refusing to tell the judge how he found out about the out-of-court meeting. Steel was ordered to serve 10 consecutive weekends in jail, but the Georgia Supreme Court put that penalty on hold pending an appeal.
During a hearing Monday without jurors present, Glanville said he would release the transcript of the meeting that he had with prosecutors and state witness Kenneth Copeland and Copeland’s lawyer. He said he would also allow another judge to decide whether he should be removed from the case.
Glanville told the lawyers he would enter the order sending the recusal matter to another judge, adding, “We’ll see you in a little bit, depending upon how it’s ruled upon, alright?”
“Your honor, do we have a timeline of when the motion to recuse may be heard?” prosecutor Simone Hylton asked.
“Don’t know,” Glanville responded, saying the court clerk has to assign it to another judge. “I don’t have anything to do with that.”
Hylton asked if the matter could be expedited, citing concerns about holding jurors “indefinitely.”
Glanville said he understood that concern and that he hoped it would be acted upon quickly.
Glanville has maintained there was nothing improper about the meeting. He said prosecutors requested it to talk about Copeland’s immunity agreement.
Young Thug has been wildly successful since he began rapping as a teenager and he serves as CEO of his own record label, Young Stoner Life, or YSL. Artists on his record label are considered part of the “Slime Family,” and a compilation album, “Slime Language 2,” rose to No. 1 on the charts in April 2021.
But prosecutors say YSL also stands for Young Slime Life, which they allege is an Atlanta-based violent street gang affiliated with the national Bloods gang and founded by Young Thug and two others in 2012. Prosecutors say people named in the indictment are responsible for violent crimes — including killings, shootings and carjackings — to collect money for the gang, burnish its reputation and expand its power and territory.
Spotify has removed the music and profiles of several Russian artists who support the Ukraine invasion and have been sanctioned by the European Union and elsewhere in the West, Billboard has confirmed. The removals were first reported by The Moscow Times. “Platform Rules clearly state that we take action when we identify content which explicitly […]
Warner Records has promoted Robert Santini to senior vp of brand partnerships and ad sync, the company announced Monday (July 1). Santini assumes the role after four years as the label’s vp of brand partnerships & ad sync. Under his previous title, he spearheaded projects including Warner Records’ collaboration with Roblox and the NFL for […]
The Spanish Society of Authors and Publishers (abbreviated SGAE in Spanish) has been fined 6.38 million euros (more than $6.9 million, using the average 2023 conversion rate) by the Comisión Nacional de los Mercados y la Competencia (CNMC) for anti-competitive practices related to its licensing deals with radio and TV stations.
SGAE has been fined for “two infractions of abuse of dominant position” by designing and applying its licensing rates in a manner that forces radio and TV operators to accept an “averaged availability rate” (comparable to a flat rate) to be able to use its repertoire, according to a CNMC press release on Wednesday (June 26).
The widespread application of the flat rate by the Spanish collecting society “has had a double anti-competitive effect,” the CNMC says. The first effect, which the CNMC refers to as “exploitative abuse,” results from SGAE’s practice of forcing licensees to pay the flat rate “unrelated to the actual use they make of their repertoire, both in terms of the number of works and the intensity of their use,” according to the release, which states this practice has been ongoing since “at least” Jan. 1, 2016.
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Because licensees are forced to pay the flat rate regardless of the extent of their use of SGAE’s repertoire, the CNMC adds, licensees’ incentives to contract with SGAE competitors with less substantial repertoires are limited — a second anti-competitive effect that hinders “the entry and expansion” of those competitors in the marketplace.
According to the CNMC, SGAE “enhanced” the latter effect — which it says SGAE instituted from “at least” Jan. 1, 2016, through Dec. 31, 2017 — by “presenting its musical repertoire to users as universal and offering guarantees of indemnity against possible claims by third parties for the use of rights that do not belong to its repertoire.” The CNMC argues this further limited incentives for licensees to contract with SGAE competitors.
In addition to fines, SGAE has been ordered to cease these behaviors.
Investigations into SGAE began after complaints were made by audiovisual media copyright entities Management Entity (Dama) and Unison Rights, S.L. (Unison), the release states.
Billboard reached out to SGAE but had not heard back by press time.
Earlier this year, Billboard reported SGAE’s intentions to improve its reputation under new CEO Cristina Perpiñá-Robert, who was appointed a little more than a year ago.
“SGAE is one of the world’s leading CMOs, with a crucial role to play for its members,” Perpiñá-Robert previously said. “This year is our 125th anniversary, which is a chance to celebrate what we’ve achieved but also highlight where we need to reform. I’m determined that SGAE should achieve a greater presence internationally.”
Last year, SGAE took in 349.1 million euros ($377.8 million, based on the 2023 average conversion rate) and distributed 354.1 million euros ($383.2 million), according to its 2023 financial results, while the number of members with authors rights grew from 36,956 to 83,148.
Ye (formerly known as Kanye West) is facing yet another lawsuit. West along with his Yeezy brand and former head of staff Milo Yiannopoulos were sued by eight alleged former employees, who claim they were “subjected to intolerable harassment and discrimination.”
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The sprawling lawsuit was filed in district court with the Central District of California on Saturday (June 29) and has been viewed by Billboard. A portion of the plaintiffs claim they were minors as young as 14 years old while working at Yeezy.
Plaintiffs ranging from ages 14 to 25 came from across the United States and other countries such as the United Kingdom, Hungary and Nigeria to work at Yeezy.
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However, the plaintiffs said they overworked for “inhuman” hours in a segregated working environment where Black and African employees were separated and given “less favorable” work assignments.
Various plaintiffs were tasked with building Ye’s scrapped YZY Porn venture. Minors claim they were exposed to pornographic images pertaining to the x-rated endeavor.
Around April 27, 2024, one employee alleges that Ye’s wife Bianca Censori shared a link to “hardcore pornography” with them slated to be part of the YZY Porn app.
A plaintiff known in the docs as “John Doe 1” claims he was exposed to pornographic images which were disseminated in group chats as part of the team’s communication channels. Another plaintiff who kept their identity hidden is listed as “John Doe 2” in the lawsuit and claims they were subjected to a “highly inappropriate and distressing work environment.”
“Our team looks forward to achieving justice on behalf of our very deserving clients for theshocking working environment that they were forced to endure,” said Ben Lockyer of LockyerLaw LLC.
Jordanna Thigpen of Thigpen Legal added: “Discrimination is intolerable anywhere, anytime. We believe a jury will agree that these employers must be accountable.”
All eight former Yeezy employees claim they were not paid for their work during their time working for Ye.
The legal activity has been mounting for Ye in recent months. He was hit with a sexual assault lawsuit in June by former assistant Lauren Pisciotta, who claimed she faced a “systematic” onslaught of sexual harassment and was sent graphic text messages from the “Good Life” rapper.
West settled another suit in June related to his Vultures album when he reached an agreement with Donna Summers’ estate to resolve a copyright lawsuit that accused him of interpolating her 1977 hit “I Feel Love” without permission in his song “Good (Don’t Die).”
Billboard has reached out to Ye’s reps for comment.
“I don’t know if there’s ever a perfect time to open something like this,” says Jim Davis with a laugh.
Davis, president of audiophile retailer Music Direct, is standing at the front of the newly unveiled Fidelity Record Pressing, a high-end vinyl pressing plant in Oxnard, Calif. And while he doesn’t believe there can be a “perfect” time to open a new pressing plant, he does believe in the “right” time, adding: “Our niche in this industry is the high-quality end, and there’s always room for someone making a better quality product. So I’d like to think it’s the right time because we have the right people who put this plant together, and that’s going to make all the difference in the world.” Plus, as he admits while scanning the state-of-the-art facility during an invite-only preview, it’s “very encouraging that people wanted to see what’s going on here.”
Davis co-founded Fidelity with the father-and-son team of Rick and Edward Hashimoto; the two have over seven decades of pressing plant experience combined and have emerged as leaders in quality and proficiency. Rick sees Fidelity as an opportunity to bring high-end vinyl back into focus. “I think that commercial records have been kind of pushed out the door [lately], and I think it’s important for the vinyl industry to maintain a high-quality presence,” Rick says.
Fidelity Record Pressing Plant
Courtesy of Fidelity Record Pressing
One way Fidelity’s practices help set its products apart are the burnished edges, which Edward says is an “extra hassle” but well worth the quality. “Whether you realize it or not, [the edges of vinyl are] one of first things people notice,” he says. Another way is through the plant’s record cooling process, in which only five vinyl are stacked on aluminum plates (as seen above) to help preserve disc integrity by drying slowly. Specially designed spindles also run through the center to hold each disc and prevent warping.
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But perhaps Fidelity’s biggest differentiator is that the plant presses both vinyl and SuperVinyl, a proprietary compound developed by PVC manufacturer Neotech and Record Technology Inc. (RTI) exclusively for Mobile Fidelity Sound Labs (MoFi). The composition features carbonless dye, resulting in a quieter surface that reduces noise floor and enhances groove definition. (Manufacturing costs for SuperVinyl can be eight times more than regular vinyl.)
After a two-year build, Fidelity officially opened at the start of 2024 as the pressing plant for MoFi; it soon started accepting vinyl orders from outside clients. There are currently six presses (manufactured in Nashville by Record Pressing Machines LLC) that can churn an estimated annual capacity of around 1 million records. Another four presses are on the way (the plant can accommodate a total of 12). As of now, one employee operates up to three machines, with additional employees focusing full-time on quality control, which includes spot listening to every 40-50 records for around 30 minutes.
“If you have a flawed record, you may as well just stream it on Spotify,” says Rick. “But if you have a great sounding record, you’re going to want to play that record over and over and that’s what’s going to keep people coming back to vinyl. It’s got to be great — and I think that’s what we do here.”
Rick and Edward Hashimoto
Courtesy of Fidelity Record Pressing
Tom Petty‘s estate and Warner Chappell Music announced a new worldwide administration deal on Monday (July 1), covering what’s described as the “vast majority of songs” dotting his long and winding catalog, including his decades fronting the Heartbreakers and as a solo tunesmith.
The deal, terms of which were not disclosed, covers dozens of Heartbreakers-backed songs including “Refugee,” “Here Comes My Girl” and “Even the Losers” off the band’s commercial breakthrough, Damn the Torpedoes, along with all-timers like “The Waiting,” “Learning to Fly” and Mary Jane’s Last Dance” off later efforts. (The pact does not include “American Girl” or the band’s first album, Billboard can confirm.)
Petty packed a lot of punch in his solo albums as well, and the estate’s deal with WCM covers hits including “Free Fallin’”, “I Won’t Back Down” and “Run-in’ Down a Dream” off the five-time platinum Full Moon Fever, and “Wildflowers,” “You Don’t Know How It Feels” and others off his three-time platinum Wildflowers release.
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The pact also encompasses Petty’s contributions to his pre-Heartbreakers band Mudcrutch and with roots rock supergroup Traveling Wilburys, Billboard has learned. The latter band had a relaxed and collaborative songwriting process, however Petty was main writer on the Wilburys classic “Last Night.”
Petty was only 66 and coming off a 40th anniversary tour when he died in Oct. 2, 2017 of cardiac arrest. Over the course of his 40-year career he released 13 studio albums with his famed band and another three as a solo act, going on to sell over 85 million albums and earning inductions in both the Songwriters Hall of Fame and Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Along the way he scored hits with fellow icons like Stevie Nicks (“Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around”), earned MusiCares Person of the Year and performed during the Super Bowl. He also dabbled in acting, including a memorable cameo as a future version of himself in Kevin Costner’s The Postman.
The Petty estate praised the new partnership as it looks to “expand the reach” of the singer-songwriter’s expansive catalog and bring in new fans to his work. “This partnership will open the door to new licensing opportunities and serve to introduce his music to a new generation across the globe,” the estate shared. “We’re excited for this new chapter of growth, and the preservation of Tom’s legacy both at home and abroad.”
WCM co-chair and COO, Carianne Marshall, and co-chair and CEO, Guy Moot, added: “Tom Petty’s music is woven into the fabric of our lives, not just across America, but around the world. He captured the full range and resilience of the human spirit in songs about freedom and dreams, outcasts and rebels, relationships and heartbreak, the personal and the universal. Tom’s unmistakable sound and lyrics remain as timeless and vital today as ever, and all of us at Warner Chappell Music are honored to be joining with his estate to help amplify his extraordinary legacy on a global scale.”
The Petty catalog is the latest big get for Warner Chappell following catalog deals in recent years with the estates of Davie Bowie and George Michael, and new stars including Zach Bryan, Morgan Wallen, Dua Lipa and Gerardo Ortiz, among others.
As recently as 2022, Petty’s catalog was administered by Wixen Music Publishing, which went after an Arizona politician for their unauthorized use of his anthem “I Won’t Back Down.”
In June 2022, Jeffery Williams, the rapper professionally known as Young Thug, said from jail: “I always use my music as a form of artistic expression, and I see now that Black artists and rappers don’t have that freedom.”
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Rap is the most important musical development of the last half-century. It is a Black art form that reflects, comments upon and helps define the American experience. Like other artistic expressions, rap lyrics are often fictitious and hyperbolic; they cannot be assumed to be autobiographical. And like famous surrealist painters, some rappers combine their experiences with flights of imagination, leaving the audience to decide what is “real” and what is not. Other rappers write wholly fictional accounts without labeling them as such — sometimes for commercial appeal. As Young Thug explained to XXL Magazine in 2016: “I started doing a thuggish style … I started to make cool trap music … Them songs have made millions of dollars but them songs are not me.”
Just like other artists, the creators of rap music are protected by the First Amendment; as such, they are entitled to create ambiguous art that does not separate fact from fiction.
Unlike other types of artists, however, rappers find their art used against them in criminal court, as overly aggressive prosecutors charge rappers with having committed the alleged crimes depicted in their lyrics. It seems the ultimate rap battle is between the First Amendment and the Sixth Amendment — pitting the freedom of expression against the right to a fair trial. The racial injustice of this tactic is obvious. Directors of horror and action movies are not forced to defend themselves in criminal court against allegations that their films depict actual events. Nor must the creators of country or death metal music justify their songs to a judge or jury as fiction — no matter how violent their lyrics may be. Only rappers are singled out in this way.
Hearteningly, the music industry and the social justice community have joined forces with lawmakers in opposition to this egregious prosecutorial overreach. For instance, California amended its rules of evidence to place additional burdens upon prosecutors who seek “to admit as evidence” of criminality “a form of creative expression.” In New York, proposed legislation similarly seeks to create a presumption against admitting evidence of a defendant’s creative expression in criminal trials. And, at the federal level, the Restoring Artistic Protection Act (RAP Act), seeking to shield artists from the misuse of their lyrics in both criminal and civil proceedings, has been reintroduced in Congress. This bill has support from groups such as the Black Music Action Coalition (BMAC), the Recording Academy, the Black Music Collective and SAG-AFTRA. All of these pieces of legislation aim to safeguard artists from prosecutors who want to use their creative expressions as evidence in criminal trials — ensuring rap artists enjoy the benefits of both the First and Sixth Amendments of our Constitution.
While these efforts are commendable, a significant loophole remains within the domain of criminal conspiracy prosecutions. A conspiracy is a crime where two or more people agree to commit an unlawful act, and someone in the conspiracy takes an affirmative step — or “overt act” toward the act. While the actual and proposed California, New York and federal statutes would make it harder for prosecutors to use rap lyrics as evidence of a crime, they do nothing to prevent prosecutors from alleging that rap lyrics themselves are an element of a crime — specifically, the so-called “overt act” element of a conspiracy crime. Additional legislation is urgently needed at the state and federal levels to prevent this from happening.
Conspiracy charges are darlings of prosecutors because many criminal conspiracy statutes permit the government to charge each alleged conspirator with all crimes committed by the conspiracy, so long as the alleged conspirator: (1) knowingly and willfully joined the conspiracy; and (2) committed an “overt act” in support of the conspiracy. Thus, by alleging that a rapper’s lyrics constitute an “overt act,” a prosecutor can seek to hold that rapper criminally responsible for crimes that the rapper did not even commit but rather were committed by other members of the “conspiracy.” In other words, rappers can be charged with and convicted for other people’s crimes merely by virtue of rapping. This prosecutorial tactic is literally criminalizing rap music.
The ongoing Young Thug/YSL trial vividly illustrates the urgent need for legislation banning this tactic. In that case, the prosecution has charged the defendants under a criminal conspiracy statute, Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) law. The grand jury indictment characterizes YSL as a gang engaged in criminal activities, with the Grammy-winning artist purportedly at the forefront. To link various defendants to the alleged “conspiracy,” and thus to ensnare them into the defendants’ seats at trial, the prosecution has alleged that specific sets of rap lyrics constitute “overt acts.” On their face, these lyrics are a mode of artistic expression, involving clever wordplay and other forms of humor. Lyrics cited by prosecutors include the following:
“Red just like Elmo but I never f—in’ giggle”— Jeffery “Young Thug” Williams
“Where you from, I’m from Bleveland, throw your set up” — Wunnie “Slimelife Shawty” Lee
“I shot at his mommy, now he no longer mention me” — Jeffery “Young Thug” Williams
Without legislation preventing these or other rap lyrics from being charged as “overt acts,” prosecutors will continue to use them to bolster their cases. We call for the music industry to unite with its allies to press for the introduction and passage of such legislation. Until that happens, the music industry and its allies should press candidates running for district attorney to promise not to prosecute rap lyrics as “overt acts.” Moreover, and until new legislation passes, criminal defense and music industry attorneys should advise their clients about the risks of prosecutions for merely creating rap, however outrageous and unfair that may be. Otherwise, rappers will continue to navigate a precarious line that could see their lyrics construed as a crime, undermining the fundamental principles of artistic freedom and raising urgent questions about racial and creative justice in the courtroom. Rap artists should not have to choose between their First and Sixth Amendment rights.
Jeffrey Movit is a civil litigator in New York and Los Angeles whose practice areas include copyright, trademark, defamation and entertainment law. He has been called the “lawyer to the stars” by the New York Post, and he was named by Billboard magazine as one of the “Top Music Lawyers” for 2022, 2023, and 2024.
Priya Chaudhry is a nationally-known, award-winning criminal defense trial attorney who routinely handles high-profile, high-stakes criminal cases. With nearly 50 jury trials in 25 years of practice, The Hollywood Reporter named Ms. Chaudhry as one of the “25 Power Lawyers” it recognized as “Hollywood’s Troubleshooters.”
Awais Arshad is a criminal defense attorney at ChaudhryLaw, a Fulbright Scholar and barred in multiple jurisdictions, including New York, England & Wales and Pakistan.
Eagles singer Don Henley filed a lawsuit in New York on Friday (June 28) seeking the return of his handwritten notes and song lyrics from the band’s 1976 album Hotel California.
The civil complaint filed in Manhattan federal court comes after prosecutors in March abruptly dropped criminal charges midway through a trial against three collectibles experts accused of scheming to sell the documents.
The Eagles co-founder has maintained the pages were stolen and had vowed to pursue a lawsuit when the criminal case was dropped against rare books dealer Glenn Horowitz, former Rock & Roll Hall of Fame curator Craig Inciardi and rock memorabilia seller Edward Kosinski.
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“These 100 pages of personal lyric sheets belong to Mr. Henley and his family, and he has never authorized defendants or anyone else to peddle them for profit,” Daniel Petrocelli, Henley’s lawyer, said in an emailed statement Friday.
According to the lawsuit, the handwritten pages remain in the custody of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office, which declined to comment Friday on the litigation.
Lawyers for Kosinski and Inciardi dismissed the legal action as baseless, noting the criminal case was dropped after it was determined that Henley misled prosecutors by withholding critical information.
“Don Henley is desperate to rewrite history,” Shawn Crowley, Kosinski’s lawyer, said in an emailed statement. “We look forward to litigating this case and bringing a lawsuit against Henley to hold him accountable for his repeated lies and misuse of the justice system.”
Inciardi’s lawyer, Stacey Richman, said in a separate statement that the lawsuit attempts to “bully” and “perpetuate a false narrative.”
A lawyer for Horowitz, who isn’t named as a defendant as he doesn’t claim ownership of the materials, didn’t respond to an email seeking comment.
During the trial, the men’s lawyers argued that Henley gave the lyrics pages decades ago to a writer who worked on a never-published Eagles biography and later sold the handwritten sheets to Horowitz. He, in turn, sold them to Inciardi and Kosinski, who started putting some of the pages up for auction in 2012.
The criminal case was abruptly dropped after prosecutors agreed that defense lawyers had essentially been blindsided by 6,000 pages of communications involving Henley and his attorneys and associates.
Prosecutors and the defense said they received the material only after Henley and his lawyers made a last-minute decision to waive their attorney-client privilege shielding legal discussions.
Judge Curtis Farber, who presided over the nonjury trial that opened in late February, said witnesses and their lawyers used attorney-client privilege “to obfuscate and hide information that they believed would be damaging” and that prosecutors “were apparently manipulated.”