Lawsuit
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Madonna is facing a federal class action lawsuit because she allegedly started three New York City concerts later than scheduled, a delay that her accusers say caused real legal harm to ticket buyers who “had to get up early to go to work” the next day.
In a complaint filed Wednesday (Jan. 17) in Brooklyn federal court, ticket buyers Michael Fellows and Jonathan Hadden claim the Material Girl breached her contract with concertgoers and violated New York state laws by starting three December shows past 10:30 rather than the scheduled 8:30.
“Defendants’ actions constitute not just a breach of their contracts … but also a wanton exercise in false advertising, negligent misrepresentation, and unfair and deceptive trade practices,” attorneys for the two men write.
The three concerts at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center, stops on Madonna’s Celebration Tour, were originally scheduled for July but rescheduled to December due to the singer’s illness. Fellows and Hadden say they expected their show (Dec. 13) to start on time, and “would not have paid for their tickets had they known that the concerts would start after 10:30 p.m.”
“Defendants failed to provide any notice to the ticketholders that the concerts would start much later than the start time printed on the ticket and as advertised,” attorneys for the two men write.
Leaving Barclays Center after 1:00 a.m., the two men say ticket buyers were “left stranded in the middle of the night,” some “confronted with limited public transportation” options and others with increased prices for ride-share services. They also point out that the concert took place “on a weeknight,” meaning they “had to get up early to go to work and/or take care of their family responsibilities the next day.”
In addition to Madonna herself, the lawsuit also names Live Nation and Barclays Center as defendants. In technical terms, the complaint alleges breach of contract; violation of New York’s business practices and false advertising laws; and several other forms of wrongdoing, including unjust enrichment.
The lawsuit also includes a claim of so-called negligent misrepresentation, saying the concert organizers “knew or should have known” that the concerts would not start at 8:30 because of alleged past instances of Madonna taking the stage late — and should have warned fans.
“Madonna has a long history of arriving and starting her concerts late, sometimes several hours late,” attorneys for Fellows and Hadden write. “This history occurred throughout her 2016 Rebel Heart Tour, her 2019-2020 Madame X Tour, and prior tours, where Madonna continuously started her concerts over two hours late.”
Reps for Madonna and Live Nation did not immediately return requests for comment.
Read the entire lawsuit against Madonna here:
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R. Kelly is pushing back against a $10.5 million lawsuit settlement against him, claiming that he could not address the lawsuit because he can’t read, among other reasons.
On Tuesday (January 16), legal documents were disclosed revealing R&B artist R. Kelly is challenging a $10.5 million settlement from a lawsuit that he lost in August 2023. Besides stating that he was unaware of it due to the number of lawsuits filed against him, Kelly claims he relies on his legal team to explain the lawsuits against him. “I rely on my lawyers to explain things to me because I cannot read or understand words beyond that of a grade-schooler,” Kelly said in the documents.
R. Kelly also reportedly argues in the documents that the co-defendant and former manager Donnell Russell should be solely responsible for paying the $10.5 million judgment that the court rendered. The lawsuit was filed by six women who claimed that in 2018, Kelly and Russell attempted to stop a screening of the documentary series Surviving R. Kelly in New York City, with Russell being accused of calling in a mass shooting threat to the movie theater where the screening was to take place. Kelly denied his involvement, saying that Russell wasn’t even his manager. “He did that for his own reasons,” the documents read.
Each woman in the lawsuit is slated to receive between $1.1 and $2.5 million from the judgment. These damages would be added to payments that the disgraced singer was ordered to pay out by U.S. District Judge Ann Donnelly from his royalties. R. Kelly is currently in prison in North Carolina and is expected to serve out sentences totaling up to thirty years after being convicted of sex trafficking and racketeering. Russell was sentenced to one year in prison after being convicted of violent intimidation.
A statement from Kelly’s lawyer, Jennifer Bonjean, offered some clarification to the reports. “We are absolutely pushing back on the $10.5 million default judgment that was entered against him without notice and without a sound legal justification,” the statement began. “It would be simplistic and silly to write that the basis for our motion to vacate the windfall judgment relates solely to his illiteracy (although he is in fact functionally illiterate per formalized testing). The more significant problem is that there was no legal basis to enter the default judgment on the merits.”
Mötley Crüe co-founder Mick Mars has won a court order against his former bandmates, but the legal battle over his exit from the band is far from over.
In a decision Tuesday (Jan. 16), a Los Angeles judge ruled that the band should have handed over financial records, operating agreements and other key information earlier — and that Mars was therefore entitled to be repaid the legal bills he spent suing to win access to those files.
“The requests were not burdensome. Yet, Mars was compelled to file suit, and it appears plain that production would not have occurred without it. Mars is entitled to attorney fees,” Los Angeles Superior Court Judge James C. Chalfant wrote in the ruling, which was obtained by Billboard.
Since the band ultimately ended up handing over those files in December, the judge ruled Tuesday that Mars’ court case is now legally moot. But he ruled that the band’s delay had been improper, meaning they owed Mars reimbursement: “These documents should have been produced without the need for prodding by Mars.” The total amount of legal fees will be decided in future proceedings.
The decision is a win for Mars, who claimed in court filings that Mötley Crüe was trying to make sure he “spends as much money as possible” so that he would be “starved out.” But it does not mean he has won his case against the band. The real battle, over whether his bandmates breached their contract by kicking him out, is going to take place in a private arbitration case that remains pending.
The civil war within Crüe first burst into the open in April, when Mars filed his lawsuit claiming he had been unceremoniously terminated by his “brothers of 41 years.” Though technically only seeking access to the band’s records, the lawsuit disclosed for the first time that the two sides were already locked in arbitration proceedings over his exit from the band.
In the complaint, Mars argued the band had moved to illegally deprive him of his 25% ownership stake in the group, a move he claimed came after he made the “tragic announcement” that he could no longer tour due to an arthritic condition called ankylosing spondylitis.
The band quickly responded, saying it “did not owe Mick anything” under existing band agreements and had done nothing wrong. They cited sworn declarations in which numerous touring staffers stated that Mars had repeatedly made serious errors on stage before he exited the band, including suddenly “playing a different song in a middle of another one” and “forgetting chords and songs.”
With that core dispute still unresolved and set to be decided by an arbitrator later this year, both sides portrayed Tuesday’s court ruling as a victory.
The band’s lawyer, Sasha Frid, pointed to the fact the judge declared Mars’ case moot: “The case is over. That’s the key takeaway. By denying the petition as moot and ending the case, the court found that the band turned over all the documents to Mars and there is nothing more to do. The band went above and beyond its obligations by providing much more documents than the statute required.”
Mars’ lawyer Ed McPherson, meanwhile, sharply rejected that interpretation: “If it makes the band feel better to say that they won, that is fine — but they apparently haven’t read the judge’s decision. When the judge says that they failed to produce documents ‘without justification,’ and he orders them to pay Mick’s attorneys’ fees, that does not feel like a win for the band to me!”
A year after the legal battle over Prince’s estate was finally settled, the music legend’s heirs are now suddenly back in court again, battling amongst each other over allegations that certain family members are trying to wrongfully seize control.
The lawsuit, made public Wednesday (Jan. 10) in Delaware court, amounts to a civil war among the members of Prince Legacy LLC, one of the two holding companies created to run the star’s $156 million estate. (Primary Wave, which owns the other half of the estate, is not involved in the dispute.)
The case was filed by L. Londell McMillan and Charles Spicer, two longtime Prince friends who serve as managers for Prince Legacy, over allegations that four of Prince’s family members have been improperly trying to force them out of the company. They say such a move not only violates the group’s operating agreement but would cause massive damage to efforts “to preserve and protect Prince’s legacy.”
“The Individual defendants lack any business and management experience, have no experience in the music and entertainment industries, and have no experience negotiating and managing high-level deals in the entertainment industry,” McMillan and Spicer wrote in the complaint, obtained by Billboard. “They have a documented history of infighting. Based on the amount and complexity of the work that Prince Legacy is involved with, they are simply not capable of stepping in and managing its business.”
The lawsuit targets Prince’s half-sisters Sharon Nelson and Norrine Nelson, as well as his niece Breanna Nelson and his nephew Allen Nelson. None of the defendants could immediately be located for comment, and attorneys who have previously represented them did not return requests for comment.
If Sharon and Norrine “install themselves” and oust McMillan and Spicer, the lawsuit claims that “their interference and intervention will make it impossible to carry on the business of Prince Legacy and will cause irreparable harm to the Company’s good will, existing relationships, and revenue streams.”
Prince died of a fentanyl overdose in April 2016 at the age of 57. Though legendary for his tight control over his intellectual property rights, the iconic artist died without a will, sparking a complex process known as probate in which courts decide how to disperse a deceased person’s estate. Six of Prince’s half-siblings were named as heirs, three of whom later sold their shares to Primary Wave.
The court case finally wrapped up in August 2022 when the estate was formally divided evenly between Prince Legacy (owned by McMillan, Spicer and the remaining heirs) and a similar company called Prince Oat Holdings LLC, which is owned entirely by Primary Wave. At the time, both sides vowed to work together to bring Prince’s music and legacy to a new generation of music fans.
But according to Wednesday’s lawsuit, tensions quickly rose at Prince Legacy behind closed doors. McMillan and Spicer, installed as managing members of the company, claim that Sharon became “disgruntled” because they refused to comply with her “unreasonable demands” about the operations of the estate, and was “offended” her actions were subject to approval from the rest of the company.
“For example, Sharon sought (unsuccessfully) to replace the entire staff of Paisley Park with individuals of her choosing and take charge of Paisley Park,” the lawsuit claims, referring to Prince’s famed Minnesota mansion. “Her demands for lavish events held at Paisley Park at the expense of Paisley Park were likewise rejected.”
Breanna, meanwhile, allegedly became displeased when similar efforts were rejected. Among other demands, the lawsuit claims she to tried to “appoint her son as an intern of Paisley Park in the marketing department” and make other key hires without consulting the company.
Rather than raise their grievances in an appropriate manner, McMillan and Spicer claim that Sharon and Breanna instead “harassed and disparaged” the two managers while demanding that they resign. They say Sharon threatened to publish “false allegations” and sue them unless they would step down.
Perhaps most notably, the lawsuit claims that both women then attempted to unilaterally sell their shares in the holding company to Primary Wave — a contentious subject that evokes the years of messy litigation and dealing that it took to finally resolve the estate case in the current 50-50 structure.
In the lawsuit, McMillan and Spicer say such a sale could not be made without unanimous consent of the members of Prince Legacy. Faced with that limitation, the lawsuit claims that the heirs have been trying to change the company’s bylaws — both to remove McMillan and Spicer as managers and to lower the threshold required to let a member sell their shares to a third party.
The lawsuit is seeking an immediate injunction, blocking any such changes from taking place on the grounds that it would leave the company “irreparably harmed” if allowed to proceed.
“The Individual Defendants’ conduct threatens the myriad business undertakings of Prince Legacy, currently being managed by McMillan and Spicer and threatens the Company’s relationship with third parties and its leverage in negotiating those deals,” the lawsuit says.
Nigel Lythgoe has stepped down as a judge of So You Think You Can Dance amid a lawsuit by Paula Abdul accusing him of sexual assault, Variety reported on Friday (Jan. 5).
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“I have informed the producers of ‘So You Think You Can Dance’ of my decision to step back from participating in this year’s series,” Lythgoe, who is also an executive producer of the show, said in a statement to the publication. “I did so with a heavy heart but entirely voluntarily because this great program has always been about dance and dancers, and that’s where its focus needs to remain. In the meantime, I am dedicating myself to clearing my name and restoring my reputation.”
Fox, 19 Entertainment and Dick Clark Productions added in a statement the upcoming season, which will premiere on March 4, “will proceed, although without Nigel Lythgoe, to ensure the show remains committed to the contestants, who have worked incredibly hard for the opportunity to compete on our stage.”
Allison Holker and Maksim Chmerkovskiy have been previously announced as judges on the upcoming 18th season.
Lythgoe’s departure comes amid a lawsuit from Paula Abdul, filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court on Friday (Dec. 29) and obtained by Billboard, claiming that the former American Idol and So You Think You Can Dance producer sexually assaulted her on two occasions. The first instance allegedly occurred during one of the early seasons of American Idol and the second took place in 2014 when she was in talks to judge So You Think You Can Dance.
Abdul alleges in the suit that Lythgoe first sexually assaulted her in an elevator of a hotel where they were both staying while traveling for one of Idol‘s “initial seasons.” It does not state a specific year the alleged incident occurred.
Abdul’s complaint claims that Lythgoe sexually assaulted Abdul again in 2014 when she was approached for a judging position on So You Think You Can Dance. The alleged incident took place during a dinner at his home where the two were supposed to discuss her professional opportunities, according to the lawsuit. See the full details of her lawsuit here.
Lythgoe denied the claims, saying in a statement that he was “shocked and saddened” to hear of the allegations made by Abdul, who he said he considered a “dear” and “entirely platonic” friend, The Associated Press reports.
“While Paula’s history of erratic behavior is well-known, I can’t pretend to understand exactly why she would file a lawsuit that she must know is untrue,” Lythgoe said in the statement. “But I can promise that I will fight this appalling smear with everything I have.”
A federal appeals court on Thursday ruled against Nirvana and revived a child pornography lawsuit filed by the man who appeared as a nude baby on the cover of the band’s 1991 album Nevermind.
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Spencer Elden, now in his 30s, claimed the photo – one of the most iconic album covers in rock history – violated federal child pornography laws by displaying a sexualized image of a minor. But a lower ruled last year that he had waited far too long to bring his lawsuit.
In a decision overturning that ruling, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that each new republication of the image – including a highly-publicized 30th anniversary re-release in 2021 – could constitute a new “injury” to Elden that would reset the statute of limitations.
“Victims of child pornography may suffer a new injury upon the republication of the pornographic material,” Judge Sandra Segal Ikuta wrote for a three-judge panel. “This conclusion is consistent with the Supreme Court’s view that every viewing of child pornography is a repetition of the victim’s abuse.”
The ruling does not mean that Elden has won the case. The lawsuit will now return to a lower court, where he must actually prove that the image meets the definition of child pornography – something Nirvana vigorously disputes and some legal experts doubt.
In a statement to Billboard, Nirvana’s attorney Bert Deixler called the ruling a “procedural setback” that did not affect their core arguments: “We will defend this meritless case with vigor and expect to prevail.”
An attorney for Elden did not immediately return a request for comment.
Originally released Sept. 24, 1991, Nevermind reached the top spot on the Billboard 200 in January 1992 and ultimately spent 554 weeks on the chart. The album has sold more than 30 million copies and is widely considered one of the most influential in the history of popular music.
The album’s cover — a nude infant swimming in a pool chasing after a dollar attached to a fishhook — was long interpreted as an edgy critique of greed and capitalism. But in his 2021 civil lawsuit, Elden claimed it was something else entirely: the kind of “lascivious” display of a minor’s genitals that’s prohibited under federal child pornography statutes.
“Spencer’s true identity and legal name are forever tied to the commercial sexual exploitation he experienced as a minor which has been distributed and sold worldwide from the time he was a baby to the present day,” he claimed at the time.
In addition to Nirvana’s corporate entity, the lawsuit also named Kurt Cobain’s estate, Universal Music Group, Dave Grohl and a number of other companies and individuals. The lawsuit was a civil action, and no allegations of criminal wrongdoing by anyone have been raised.
Nirvana sharply disputed that the image amounted to child pornography, but argued first that the case should be dismissed for a simpler reason: the statute of limitations. They cited the fact that Elden had seemingly endorsed his role in rock history on a number of occasions, including prior to the cutoff year for the 10-year statute of limitations.
“Long before 2011, as Elden has pled, Elden knew about the photograph, and knew that he (and not someone else) was the baby in the photograph,” the band claimed in its motion to dismiss the case. “He has been fully aware of the facts of both the supposed ‘violation’ and ‘injury’ for decades.”
In a ruling in September 2022, a federal judge agreed with Nirvana’s arguments. He ruled that the 10-year time limit began when a victim “reasonably discovers” either the crime or the injury caused by it – and that under either time limit, Elden had clearly filed his case too late.
But in Thursday’s decision, the Ninth Circuit said the time limits were more like those used in defamation cases and other “dignitary torts,” where a new repetition of the offending publication could give grounds to sue, despite the statute of limitations.
“The online dissemination of child pornography haunts victims long after their original images or videos are created,” the court wrote. “As the Supreme Court has explained, the victim’s knowledge of publication of the visual material increases the emotional and psychic harm suffered by the child.”
The court added later: “If a victim learns a defendant has distributed child pornography and does not sue, but then later learns the defendant has done so again many years later, the statute of limitations … does not prevent the plaintiff from bringing a claim based on that new injury.”
SiriusXM is facing a lawsuit from New York’s attorney general over allegations that the satellite radio and streaming service has made it “extremely difficult” for listeners to cancel their subscriptions.
In a complaint filed Wednesday (Dec. 20) in Manhattan court, Attorney General Letitia James’ office accused SiriusXM of subjecting canceling customers to “a lengthy and burdensome endurance contest,” which allegedly requires phone conversations with a live agent and extended time spent on hold.
“Sirius deliberately wastes its subscribers’ time even though it has the ability to process cancellations with the click of a button,” attorneys from James’ office wrote in the lawsuit. “The only reason Sirius requires cancelling subscribers to interact with a live agent at all is to maximize its opportunity to retain them as subscribers.”
In a statement announcing the lawsuit, James said it followed an investigation that showed SiriusXM was “trapping consumers” with its cancellation process, including by training its employees “not take ‘no’ for an answer.”
“Having to endure a lengthy and frustrating process to cancel a subscription is a stressful burden no one looks forward to, and when companies make it hard to cancel subscriptions, it’s illegal,” James said. “Consumers should be able to cancel a subscription they no longer use or need without any issues, and companies have a legal duty to make their cancellation process easy.”
Following the filing of the lawsuit, a spokeswoman for SiriusXM said the company would “vigorously defend against these baseless allegations,” saying that they “grossly mischaracterize” its practices.
“It’s telling that the New York Attorney General issued a press release before providing SiriusXM with a copy of the complaint,” the company statement said. “Like a number of consumer businesses, we offer a variety of options for customers to sign up for or cancel their SiriusXM subscription.”
According to the new lawsuit, SiriusXM automatically renews subscriptions at the end of a term unless a user calls on the phone to cancel. The lawsuit claims that users are sometimes forced to wait as long as 25 minutes just to connect with an agent, who then subject them to a “six-part script” in which they are trained to repeatedly refuse to actually terminate the subscription.
“Sirius requires its live agents to present a series of renewal offers to retain the consumer as a subscriber,” the AG’s office wrote in the lawsuit. “But when a consumer declines an offer, or refuses to hear further offers, Sirius instructs its agents not to take ‘no’ for an answer.”
By doing so, SiriusSM forces subscribers to “devote inordinate amounts of time, patience, and stamina trying to cancel a subscription they no longer wish to pay for,” the lawsuit says, even though they have a “legal and contractual right to cancel anytime using a process that is simple and efficient.”
A California appeals court ruled Wednesday (Dec. 13) that Marilyn Manson’s former assistant can sue him for sexual assault, overturning an earlier decision that said she waited too long to bring her case.
In a 24-page opinion, California’s Second Appellate District revived a lawsuit filed by Ashley Walters that claims Manson subjected her to brutal treatment, including sexual harassment and discrimination, during the year that she worked for him from 2010 to 2011.
A lower court had ruled last year that Walters’ lawsuit, filed in 2021, was barred by the statute of limitations, which requires such cases to be filed within two years. But on Wednesday, the appeals court said Walters’ case was fair game under the so-called delayed discovery rule, as she claims the trauma of the incidents caused her to suppress the memories until 2020.
“Until she received diagnosis and treatment, Walters [says she] was unable to remember the repressed events, and once she did recall them, she was unable to immediately identify these events as abuse,” the court wrote. “These allegations of suppressed memories and psychological blocking are sufficient to withstand [dismissal].”
A representative for Manson declined to comment on the ruling. An attorney for Walters did not immediately return a request for comment.
Walters was one of several women who accused Manson of sexual abuse in 2021. His former fiancé Evan Rachel Wood accused him of grooming and sexual abuse on Twitter in February 2021, and then others, including Game of Thrones actress Esmé Bianco and model Ashley Morgan Smithine, filed lawsuits against him.
Manson has denied all of the accusations, and several of the cases have been dismissed or settled. Manson later sued Wood for defamation, claiming she had “secretly recruited, coordinated, and pressured” other women to make such allegations, though that case was largely dismissed earlier this year.
In her lawsuit, Walters claimed that Manson subjected her to “sexual exploitation, manipulation and psychological abuse” while she worked for him as a personal assistant. The alleged abuse included whipping her and throwing her against a wall in a “a drug-induced rage”; forcing her to stay awake for 48 hours by feeding her cocaine; and having “offered” her sexually to friends and associates.
In June 2022, the case was dismissed for being filed past the statute of limitations. Walters argued then that she had suppressed the memories of Manson’s abuse until other women began coming forward, but the judge said during a hearing that he had not seen “sufficient facts” to invoke the delayed-discovery rule.
In Wednesday’s ruling overturning that decision, the appeals court did not say that Walters’ accusations against Manson were true. Instead, it merely said that her allegations were enough for the case to survive being dismissed at the outset. The court recounted various claims that, if proven true, would mean that Walters had truly not discovered the abuse until 2020.
“The complaint described the support group Walters joined in October 2020 and recounted the stories shared by the other abused women that ‘began to unlock new memories [Walters] repressed long ago as a result of her psychological trauma by being manipulated and threatened by Warner during and after her employment,’” the court wrote. “The complaint also described how Walters began therapy in November 2020 and was diagnosed the following month with complex posttraumatic stress disorder, major depressive disorder, and generalized anxiety disorder.”
The ruling sends the case back to the trial court, where the parties will engage in more litigation, conduct discovery and move toward an eventual trial.
If you or someone you know has experienced sexual violence and need support and/or resources, reach out to RAINN and the National Sexual Assault Hotline (800-656-HOPE) for free, confidential help 24/7.
Lil Durk is facing a lawsuit that claims he signed deals with two different entities for the same song rights — a move that one of the buyers now calls a “manifest fraud.”
In a complaint filed Wednesday (Dec. 6) in Manhattan federal court, a fintech firm called Exceed Talent Capital says Durk (real name Durk Derrick Banks) agreed to grant the company the recording royalties from his song “Bedtime” even though he had already signed an exclusive deal with Sony’s Alamo Records.
“Despite defendants’ unambiguous contractual representations and warranties regarding their rights in the Banks recording, Exceed has now learned that Banks previously had assigned to a third party the exact same rights,” the company’s lawyers wrote.
The lawsuit claims that the move by Durk — who reached No. 2 on the Hot 100 earlier this year with his “All My Life” — caused Exceed to incur more than $12 million in damages.
“As defendants have failed and refused to acknowledge any responsibility for their intentional misrepresentations and material contractual breaches, let alone take action to rectify the same, Exceed was compelled to bring the present action to obtain legal redress,” the company wrote.
According to the complaint, Exceed agreed to pay Durk $600,000 for the recording rights to “Bedtime.” The company says it wanted to package Durk’s track into a fractional investment vehicle, which would allow investors to buy the right to receive ongoing royalties to the song.
“Where I’m from, few own anything,” the rapper said in a press release announcing Exceed’s royalties investment product. “As The Voice of the Trenches and for my label OTF, I’m always looking for ways to expand and give back to my people. Exceed makes it possible for my fans to become part of my team and share in our success together.”
But in May, Exceed received a cease-and-desist from Alamo. The label informed the fintech firm that Durk was “signed to an exclusive recording agreement with Alamo” and that he did not possess the right to sell his recording royalties to anyone.
“Rather, as Alamo informed Exceed, Alamo possesses those (and a number of further) exclusive rights pursuant to an agreement that Alamo entered into with Banks [in 2021], well over a year before defendants entered into, respectively, the [agreement with Exceed].”
Exceed says it demanded that Durk either fix the situation or refund $450,000 that had already been paid, but that he “utterly ignored” those requests. The lawsuit says the debacle forced Exceed to cancel the sale after it had already “expended significant time, effort and financial resources” in getting it approved by the Securities and Exchange Commission.
“Exceed was compelled … to return the funds that had been invested by third parties in the Offering, further significantly damaging Exceed’s reputation and relationships with its partners and investors,” the company wrote.
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Boosie Badazz might be the first rapper to be told to “get over it” after someone blatantly stole his lyrics and hook for a song. After Rod Wave recorded and released the track “Long Journey” without giving Boosie any writing or publishing credit, the Lousiana rapper says he’s ready to get litigious with his younger peer.
In recent Instagram Live videos, Boosie Badazz explained that he and Rod Wave did try to work things out behind the scenes over the track “Long Journey,” which appears on Wave’s Nostalgia album. The track shares the same name as Boosie’s 2010 track and has the same chorus.
In one video, Boosie says he would’ve called off the suit for $200,000 and 25% in royalties going forward but Wave tried to talk Boosie down on the cost according to his account. Boosie also raised a fair point in saying that the use of the track and him speaking out from a legal standpoint made fans, quote, “choose sides.”
In another video, Boosie shares that he doesn’t own 100% of “Long Journey” but he does have songwriting and publishing credits on the track and just wants his fair share. The video below displays Boosie’s side of things.
The pushback from fans without law degrees is that they’re framing Boosie Badazz as trying to shake down Rod Wave for money he doesn’t deserve. Further, some are speculating that the label that put out Boosie’s “Long Journey” track might be pulling a fast one but that doesn’t explain if Wave and his producers actually cleared and paid for the use of the song and hook.
Check out some reactions from X, formerly known as Twitter, below.
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