Legal
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This is The Legal Beat, a weekly newsletter about music law from Billboard Pro, offering you a one-stop cheat sheet of big new cases, important rulings, and all the fun stuff in between. This week: A murder case against rapper YNW Melly turns into an appellate battle over the death penalty, Phoebe Bridgers defeats a producerâs defamation lawsuit, Megan Thee Stallion wins a restraining order against her label, and much more.
THE BIG STORY: YNW Melly Could Face Death Penalty
Three years after he was arrested and charged with first-degree murder, YNW Melly has found himself at the center of a legal battle over the death penalty, with a trip to the Florida Supreme Court looming next.If you havenât been following: Melly (real name Jamell Demons) faces two counts of murder over accusations that he and another rapper, YNW Bortlen, shot and killed Anthony âYNW Sakchaserâ Williams and Christopher âYNW Juvyâ Thomas Jr. in 2018.A first-degree murder defendant in Florida would typically face the possibility of execution if convicted. But earlier this year, Mellyâs attorneys argued that the state had forfeited the right to seek capital punishment by failing to comply with strict laws on how they must warn defendants that theyâll do so.Florida requires prosecutors to give notice 45 days after arraignment if they plan to seek capital punishment. In Mellyâs case, the state attorney filed such notice when they originally indicted the rapper in 2019, but they then failed to do so when they re-charged him with a so-called superseding indictment earlier this year. In July, a state trial judge sided with Mellyâs lawyers, taking the death penalty off the table.But in a ruling last week, a state appeals court overturned that decision. Since prosecutors gave notice that they might seek death when they first charged him, the court said they had complied with state rules â and more importantly, had avoided the due process problems the rules were designed to safeguard against.âNotice is notice,â the court wrote in its opinion. âThe defendant has had nearly three years to start the preparation of his defense to the state seeking the death penalty [and] the record contains no evidence that the defendant was prejudiced in any way.âThe ruling likely wonât be the last on Mellyâs case. In handing down its decision, the appeals court certified that the case dealt with novel legal questions that are of âgreat public importanceâ to the state of Florida â meaning they should be decided by the stateâs Supreme Court.In a statement to Billboard, Mellyâs attorney Philip R. Horowitz said he and his client were âdisappointed in the rulingâ but âlook forward to our opportunity to argue our position before the justices.â
Other top stories this weekâŠ
PHOEBE SLAPPS DOWN LAWSUIT â A Los Angeles judge tossed out a lawsuit against Phoebe Bridgers that accused her of defaming producer/studio owner Chris Nelson, citing Californiaâs anti-SLAPP law thatâs designed to protect free speech against questionable lawsuits. Nelsonâs lawsuit claimed that Bridgers lied about him in a series of October 2020 Instagram posts, in which the singer amplified accusations of abuse made against him by another woman. Her lawyers then fired back that Nelson was just using the lawsuit to âchill Ms. Bridgersâ allegations of abusive conduct, which are protected by the First Amendment.â Though Judge Curtis A. Kin sided with that argument last week, he did not issue a written ruling explaining the decision. Nelson has already vowed to appeal; a rep for Bridgers said the star felt âvindicated that the court recognized this lawsuit as frivolous and without merit.âMEGAN THEE PLAINTIFF â A judge in Texas sided with Megan Thee Stallion and granted her a restraining order against her record label 1501 Certified Entertainment, issued after she claimed that the company âunlawfullyâ took steps âto block or interfereâ with her ability to use her music in the lead-up to the AMAs on Sunday. The order bars the company from âpreventing or blocking the use and exploitationâ of Meganâs music in promotional content for the AMAs. The tussle ahead of the awards show is the latest front in a years-long legal war between Megan and 1501. She claims the label duped her into signing an unfair contract and has retaliated against her for challenging it; the company claims Megan, with the help of Jay-Zâs Roc Nation, is using baseless litigation merely as a vehicle to escape a deal she âno longer likes.âYE SUED YET AGAIN â Kanye West is facing a new copyright lawsuit over allegations that his âLife of the Partyâ illegally sampled from 1986 song âSouth Bronxâ by the pioneering rap group Boogie Down Productions. The company that currently owns BDPâs copyrights says Westâs people reached out to clear the sample, but then released it anyway when a deal was never struck. The case is the latest in a string of such infringement case against the embattled rapper, who (amid many, many other problems) has been repeatedly sued for failing to secure licenses for samples.THEIR LOSS? â Just days after CondĂ© Nast sued Drake and 21 Savage for using a fake cover story in Vogue magazine to promote their new album Her Loss, a federal judge issued a restraining order forcing them to stop using it. The judge ruled that the cover â one of several fake promos for the album â was likely violating the publisherâs trademarks because Drake and 21 were âmisleading consumersâ and âdeceiving the public.â DJ SUED FOR NFT PROFITS â 3LAU was hit with a lawsuit claiming the DJ refused to properly share the earnings from an $11 million NFT auction with Luna Aura, a musical collaborator who co-authored one of the songs involved. Aura claims she owns a 50% royalty stake in the song âWalk Awayâ from his album Ultraviolet â but that 3LAU (real name Justin Blau) offered her just $25,000 from the much-publicized NFT auction tied to the record: âDespite this financial windfall, defendants only offered Luna Aura a flat one-time payment.â 3LAUâs reps said the case was âwithout meritâ and came as a surprise after months of negotiations.BANKROLL FREDDIE ARRESTED â Rapper Bankroll Freddie (Freddie Gladney III) was arrested in Arkansas on federal gun and drug charges, part of a sweeping bust across the state that saw 80 defendants indicted and 45 arrested, including his father Freddie Gladney Jr. The rapper, signed to Quality Control, is facing 11 total charges, including various drug possessions and possession of a machine gun.
Attorneys for Dua Lipa are asking a federal judge to quickly toss out a lawsuit claiming she stole her smash hit song âLevitatingâ from a little-known reggae track, calling the allegations âspeculative,â âvagueâ and supported by little real evidence.
Members of the Florida band Artikal Sound System sued Lipa earlier this year, claiming her 2020 smash hit â which spent 77 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 chart â borrowed its core hook from their 2017 song âLive Your Life.â
But in a motion to dismiss the case filed Monday (Nov. 14), Lipaâs lawyers said there was no sign that anyone involved in creating âLevitatingâ ever even had access to the earlier song â a key requirement in any copyright lawsuit. Artikal Sound Systemâs attempts to show such a connection, they said, were âtortured.â
âThey amount to nothing more than a speculative, attenuated theory based on numerous degrees of separation, none of which establish any link â let alone a concrete link â between the writers of âLevitatingâ and âLive Your Life,’â wrote Lipaâs lawyers from the firm Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp LLP.
âPlaintiffs are essentially seeking to plead access,â the starâs legal team wrote, âby alleging that someone who knows someone who knows someone might have met one of the âLevitatingâ writers.â
âLevitating,â released in 2020 on Lipaâs second studio album Future Nostalgia, was a massive hit, eventually peaking at No. 2 on the Hot 100 and securing the honor of being the longest-running top 10 song ever by a female artist on the chart.
Artikal Sound System is a reggae band based out of South Florida, founded in 2012 as a duo before later adding additional musicians and vocalist Logan Rex. The band released âLive Your Lifeâ on its 2017 EP Smoke and Mirrors.
In their March lawsuit, the band said the songs sounded so similar that it was âhighly unlikely that âLevitatingâ was created independently.â The lawsuit also named Warner Records, as well as others who helped create the hit track.
In Mondayâs filing, beyond arguing that Lipa and other writers never heard the song, her lawyers also said Artikal Sound System failed to show that the songs were similar enough to constitute copyright infringement. The complaint is full of âvague, boilerplate labels and conclusions,â they said, but âdevoid of a shred of factual detailâ
âPlaintiffs fail to allege a single fact that identifies what material from âLive Your Lifeâ is copied in âLevitatingâ,â Lipaâs lawyers wrote. âInstead, Plaintiffs merely conclusorily allege purported similarities between the two works without any factual detail whatsoever.â
An attorney for Artikal Sound System did not immediately return a request for comment on Tuesday.
The current case is one of two lawsuits Lipa is facing over âLevitating.â The other, filed just days later, claims she and the other writers lifted material from both a 1979 song called âWiggle and Giggle All Nightâ and a 1980 song called âDon Diablo.â That case is still pending in a different court.
Mariah Carey might be the âQueen of Christmas,â but a new legal ruling means she wonât be able to stop others from using the same name.
In a decision issued Tuesday, a tribunal at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office rejected Careyâs application to register the royal title as a federal trademark. The decision went in favor of Elizabeth Chan, another singer who says sheâs used the same name for years.
Chan filed a legal case against Carey in August, arguing that âChristmas is big enough for more than one Queen.â After that, Carey never responded to the case or defended her applications for the trademarks, prompting the Trademark Office to rule in favor of Chan by default.
âWe are pleased with the victory, and delighted that we were able to help Elizabeth fight back against Careyâs overreaching trademark registrations,â said Tompros, an attorney at the law firm WilmerHale.
In the same statement, Chan herself added: âChristmas is a season of giving, not the season of taking, and it is wrong for an individual to attempt to own and monopolize a nickname like Queen of Christmas for the purposes of abject materialism.â
Careyâs attorney did not return a request for comment on the decision.
In a statement, Chanâs lawyer Louis Tompros called Careyâs efforts to secure legal protection over the âQueenâ name âa classic case of trademark bullyingâ â a term used to criticize overly-aggressive trademark protection by big brands.
Likely playing on her perennial smash hit âAll I Want For Christmas Is You,â Careyâs company (Lotion LLC) applied last year to register the âQueenâ name as an exclusive brand name for a variety of different goods and services, ranging from music to alcohol to fragrances.
Trademarks are different than copyrights, and they do not give someone blanket ownership over particular words. If Carey had won the registrations and wanted to sue someone, she still would have needed to prove that consumers had confused the two brand names â not always an easy task, particularly with a fairly unoriginal name like âQueen of Christmas.â
But such registrations are still important, and would have empowered Careyâs company to start threatening litigation and crowding out others from using it in similar commercial contexts. That potentially would include Chan, who calls her self âpop musicâs only full-time Christmas singerâ and says sheâs also been repeatedly dubbed the âQueen of Christmas.â
The risk of such litigation prompted Chan to file her August case at the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board, a court-like body within the USPTO that decides disputes over who is entitled to register particular trademarks. Repped by Tompros, she argued that no single singer or company should be able to lock up the title.
âMs. Carey can call herself whatever she wants, but she shouldnât have the ability to block others from doing the same,â Tompros said at the time.
Itâs unclear exactly what motivated Carey and her lawyers (from the elite trademark law firm Fross Zelnick) to file the applications, particularly after she gave an interview in December in which she seemed to disclaim the title: âTo me, Mary is the Queen of Christmas.â
The dispute over the âQueenâ title prompted some fun wrangling among other Christmas âqueens.â Darlene Love jokingly urged Carey to âcall my lawyer,â noting that David Letterman had âofficially declared me the Queen of Christmas 29 years ago.â And just last week, Dolly Parton quickly conceded the title to Carey after an interviewer suggested that Parton might be âthe new Queen of Christmas.â
âNow, donât you say that! Iâm not going to compete with Mariah,â Parton said in the interview with Better Homes and Gardens. âI love her. You think of Christmas, you think of Mariah.â
âIs it true that Mariah Carey trademarked âQueen of Christmas?â What does that mean that I canât use that title?â Love asked in the post. âAt 81 years of age Iâm NOT changing anything. Iâve been in the business for 52 years, have earned it and can still hit those notes! If Mariah has a problem call David or my lawyer!!â
Megan Thee Stallion and Big Sean have reached a settlement with two little-known Detroit rappers, ending a lawsuit claiming the hip-hop superstars ripped off an earlier song with their 2020 collaboration âGo Crazy.â
In a lawsuit filed in July, Duawn âGo Hard Majorâ Payne and Harrell âH Maticâ James claimed that Meganâs song sounded so much like their 2012 track âKrazyâ that there was no way it had been created independently without illegal copying.
But just four months later, attorneys for the pair of accusers notified a federal judge Friday (Nov. 11) that the two sides had âreached an agreement in principle to settle their dispute in its entirety.â
The public filing did not disclose any terms of the agreement, like whether any money would exchange hands or songwriting credits would be altered. Attorneys for both sides did not immediately return requests for more details.
âGo Crazy,â released on Stallionâs 2020 debut album Good News, didnât chart as a single, but the album spent 75 weeks on the Billboard 200 and peaked at No. 2 in December 2020. The song featured both Big Sean and 2 Chainz, though the latter was not named in the current lawsuit.
In their July 25 complaint, Payne and James claimed that various aspects of âKrazyâ and âGo Crazyâ are ânearly identical,â including the wording of the chorus, melodic and harmonic sequences and the use of cadence.
âAn average lay observer would recognize the infringing work as having been appropriated from [âKrazyâ] because of the striking similarity between the two compositions and the way in which they are performed,â said the complaint.
Since âKrazyâ was never released by a label, the attorneys for the two accusers made a creative, hyper-local argument for why Stallion or Big Sean had enough âaccessâ to the song that they were able to copy it â a key requirement in any copyright infringement lawsuit. They said Payne and James had performed the song in âWest Detroit hip hop clubs and barsâ where Big Sean â a Motor City native â had frequently gone. The pair also sold âthousands of physical copies of CDsâ in the parking lots of those same clubs, their lawyers argued.
3LAU is facing a new lawsuit that claims the DJ refused to properly share the earnings from an $11 million NFT auction with a musical collaborator who co-authored one of the songs involved.
In a complaint filed Wednesday (Nov. 9) in New York federal court, Luna Aura (real name Angela Anne Flores) says she has a 50% royalty stake in the song âWalk Awayâ from his album Ultraviolet â but that 3LAU (real name Justin Blau) offered her just $25,000 from the much-publicized NFT auction tied to the record.
âDespite this financial windfall, defendants only offered Luna Aura a flat one-time payment of twenty-five thousand dollars as compensation in connection with the sale of Ultraviolet and âWalk Awayâ NFTs,â her lawyers wrote.
Even during last yearâs fever-dream craze for NFTs (non-fungible tokens), 3LAUâs Feb. 2021 auction stood out as notable. By selling 33 collectible tokens linked to his 3-year-old album Ultraviolet â the NFTs gave the buyers access to vinyl copies, unreleased music and other special experiences â the DJ-producer raked in $11.7 million. âIt was one of those moments in my life where I was like, âHoly sâ,ââ 3LAU told Billboard at the time. ââI think we just changed everything.ââ
But according to Auraâs new lawsuit, he didnât share those profits with a key person who helped create the album. She says the auction was done without any notice to her, and that the sale breached her 2017 agreement with Blau, which guaranteed her a 50 percent publishing royalty on âWalk Away.â
âLuna Aura has not received any compensation from revenues generated from the NFT project, nor has Luna Aura [received] appropriate credit in connection with the âWalk Awayâ and Ultraviolet NFTs,â her lawyers wrote. âDespite the commercial and financial success of the NFT auction, defendants only offered Luna Aura an after-the-fact, one-time payment.â
The lawsuit did not specify how much Aura believes is an appropriate cut from the Ultraviolet NFTs but demanded an accounting to determine how much is owed.
A representative for 3LAU did not immediately return a request for comment on Thursday.
Philly rapper Tierra Whack was arrested at the Philadelphia International Airport on Tuesday (Nov. 8) for possession of a loaded handgun. A spokesperson for the Philadelphia District Attorneyâs office confirmed to Billboard that Whack, 27, was taken into custody at the airport after officials found a loaded firearm at a security checkpoint.
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DA office spokesperson Jane Roh noted that Whack had a permit to carry a concealed firearm, and that she was charged with a summary offense for having a loaded firearms at an airport security checkpoint. TMZ reported that law enforcement sources said Whackâs bag was searched by Homeland Security at an X-ray checkpoint, where they discovered the weapon with six live rounds in the magazine and none in the chamber.
Authorities told TMZ they believed that the gun was mistakenly carried by Whack to the airport; the handgun was confiscated and Whack was issued a citation and released. A spokesperson for Whack could not be reached at press time.
Philly magazine noted that licensed handgun owners are legally allowed to bring a gun on a plane if they check it in a proper container at the ticket counter. If you try to bring it through the TSA checkpoint on your body or in a carry-on, however, that is a no go, even though it happens all the time. The magazine reported that according to the TSA, agents discover 17 guns a day at airports around the U.S., with strapped travelers setting a new record in 2021, when a total of 5,972 guns were intercepted by the TSA.
As for how often people try to fly with a loaded gun, the TSA said that during a single week agents discovered 64 guns in carry-on bags, 55 of which were loaded; agents confiscated 39 guns at Philadelphia International in 2021 and so far this year theyâve already taken away 38 guns, 28 of which were loaded.
A Florida appeals court ruled Wednesday that YNW Melly could face the death penalty if convicted in his upcoming murder trial, overturning a judgeâs decision that prosecutors forfeited the right to seek capital punishment.
With a trial looming this past summer, Judge Andrew Siegel ruled that prosecutors couldnât seek the death penalty because they had failed to give Melly and his attorneys proper notice that they planned to do so, violating strict state rules.
But in a ruling on Wednesday, Floridaâs District Court of Appeal ruled the judgeâs decision was incorrect. Since prosecutors gave notice that they might seek death when they first charged Melly in 2019, they had complied with state rules. âNotice is notice,â the court wrote in its opinion.
The ruling means that Melly could be sentenced to death if convicted in his upcoming trial. But that likely wonât take place until the Florida Supreme Court rules on the case, because Wednesdayâs ruling certified the issue as one of âgreat public importanceâ that should be decided by the state high court.
In a statement to Billboard, Mellyâs attorney Philip R. Horowitz said he and his client were âdisappointed in the rulingâ but âlook forward to our opportunity to argue our position before the justices.â
The ruling came as Melly (real name Jamell Demons) continues to await trial on first-degree murder charges over accusations that he and another rapper shot and killed Anthony âYNW Sakchaserâ Williams and Christopher âYNW Juvyâ Thomas Jr. in 2018.
A trial had previously been scheduled for April, but was called off at the last minute, prompting Mellyâs attorneys to file a so-called âspeedy trial demandâ that would require the case to start within 60 days. Another trial was then set for July, but the case was again delayed over the current dispute about the death penalty.
A first-degree murder defendant in Florida would typically face the possibility of execution if convicted, but Mellyâs attorneys argued in April that the state had failed to comply with strict laws on how they must warn defendants that theyâll seek the death penalty.
Florida requires prosecutors to give notice 45 days after arraignment if they plan to seek capital punishment. In Mellyâs case, the state attorney filed such notice when they originally indicted the rapper in 2019 but failed to do so when a so-called superseding indictment was handed down earlier this year.
In July, Judge Siegel sided with Mellyâs attorneys and said prosecutors had forfeited the chance to seek death. But after prosecutors argued that the ruling was clearly incorrect, Judge Siegel acknowledged that his ruling addressed a novel legal question and halted the case until a state appeals court could rule on it.
On Wednesday, the District Court of Appeal did so â and sided decisively with prosecutors.
âWe find that the state complied with its statutory obligations when it filed its notice of intent to seek the death penalty within 45 days of arraignment,â Judge Spencer D. Levine wrote for the appeals court. âThe fact that the state filed a superseding indictment, requiring a second arraignment, does not vitiate the already filed and timely notice of intent. Notice is notice.â
The ruling said that rules were designed to give defendants a fair chance to prepare for a death penalty argument, and that prosecutors had lived up to that requirement with their original notice.
âClearly, in the present case, the defendant was noticed and apprised of the state seeking the death penalty in 2019,â Judge Levine wrote. âThe defendant has had nearly three years to start the preparation of his defense to the state seeking the death penalty [and] the record contains no evidence that the defendant was prejudiced in any way.â
Mellyâs attorneys can appeal the ruling to the Florida Supreme Court.
Just two days after Condé Nast sued Drake and 21 Savage for using a fake cover story in Vogue magazine to promote their new album Her Loss, a federal judge has issued a restraining order forcing them to stop using it.
Siding with CondĂ©, U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff ruled Wednesday that the faux cover â one of several fake promos for the album â was likely violating the publisherâs trademarks because Drake and 21 were âmisleading consumersâ and âdeceiving the public.â
âIssuance of the requested temporary restraining order is in the public interest to protect the public against confusion, deception and mistake,â the New York federal judge wrote.
For the past week, Drake and 21 Savage have been on a phony media blitz to promote Her Loss, which debuted Friday. They dropped a video of a fake performance on Saturday Night Live, teased an a similar appearance on NPRâs Tiny Desk series, and created an elaborate deepfake interview with Howard Stern.
NPR used the stunt as an opportunity to tell the star he was âwelcome anytimeâ on the beloved concert, and Stern laughed the whole thing off, but CondĂ© Nast went a different route. In a lawsuit filed Monday, the publisher called the stunt a âflagrant infringementâ its trademark, aimed at exploiting the âtremendous value that a cover feature in Vogue magazine carriesâ without actually securing one.
âAll of this is false,â the publisherâs lawyers wrote, demanding an immediate injunction forcing Drake and 21 to cease all use of the âcounterfeitâ cover. âAnd none of it has been authorized by CondĂ© Nast.â
The order issued Wednesday is whatâs known as a temporary restraining order â a quick injunction designed to prevent âirreparable harmâ that could not later be undone. A plaintiff like CondĂ© can only win one if the judge decides that they are likely to eventually win their lawsuit.
Judge Rakoffâs order bars Drake and 21 from âusing, displaying, dissenting or distributingâ the fake cover or the actual phony Vogue copies they printed as part of the stunt. And it expressly requires them to take down websites and social media posts sharing the image, and to remove physical posters put up in certain markets.
Notably, it also explicitly requires them to stop making any mention of Vogue editor in chief Anna Wintour. In its lawsuit, Conde took particular aim at the fact that Drake had thanked her in his posts sharing the fake magazine cover, saying it had been âdeliberately deceptiveâ to suggest that the infamous editor had endorsed the project.
Reps for Drake and 21 did not immediately return requests for comment on Wednesdayâs order.
A temporary restraining order is, by its nature, temporary â lasting only until the parties have a chance to argue over a longer-term injunction. A hearing on such an injunction is set for Nov. 22.
Read the full order here:
Bankroll Freddie was arrested in Jonesboro, Arkansas on Wednesday (Nov. 9) as part of a major federal drug and gun bust conducted across the state. The rapper (born Freddie Gladney III) and his father, Freddie Gladney Jr., were among more than 45 people swept up in the action according to a copy of the federal indictment.
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The indictment claims that from March 2021 through Oct. 2022 the defendants allegedly conspired to distribute and possess cocaine, crack cocaine, methamphetamine and marijuana and that Freddie possessed an arsenal of firearms that included at least three 9mm pistols, two rifles and machine guns âin furtherance of a drug trafficking crime.â
Prosecutors claim that the Gladneys and their co-conspirators allegedly trafficked guns and drugs between Arkansas, Texas, California, Arizona, Georgia, Mississippi, Tennessee and Oklahoma and that the arrests were the culmination of three different investigations. According to the Associated Press, a statement from the U.S. Attorneys office in Little Rock said that two FBI investigations into gang violence and drug trafficking and a separate DEA investigation uncovered methamphetamine and fentanyl being mailed from California into Arkansas and then distributed in Little Rock, Pine Bluff and Houston; weapons, including machine guns, cash and drugs were all seized as part of the investigation.
At press time a spokesperson for Gladney, 28, had not returned a request for comment.
KAIT 8 reported that the FBI investigations focused on two rival Arkansas gangs: the âEvery Body Killas Gang (EBK) and the âLoady Murder Mobb Gang.â After Pine Bluff detective Kevin Collins was shot and killed in Oct. 2020 while serving a warrant on an EBK member while assisting federal agents in their investigation into the gangs the information gleaned from his work allowed federal agents to obtain 12 wiretaps through June 2022 that helped prevent planned crimes and led to the arrest of Bankroll, his father and others.
According to court documents, Quality Control rapper Freddie is facing at least 11 charges, which include: possession of cocaine, possession of crack cocaine, possession of marijuana, two counts of intent to distribute marijuana, knowingly and intentionally possession firearms, three counts of providing false/fictitious information on a gun purchase form, using guns for gun trafficking, using a telephone to traffic drugs and knowingly possessing one or more machine guns.
Freddie was arrested in Arkansas in April on multiple charges, including resisting arrest/refusal to submit to arrest/active or passive refusal, âsimultaneous possession of drugs and firearms,â as well as a felony count of possession of a schedule VI controlled substance with the purpose to deliver, speeding and an additional possession charge.
Arkansas native Freddie joined the Quality Control team in 2019 after releasing his single âDrip Like Thisâ and the Saved By the Bales mixtape, followed by 2020âs From Trap to Rap album, had features from Lil Baby, Lil Yachty, Moneybagg Yo and Young Dolph. After singing to Motown Records in 2020, he dropped the 2021 single âAdd It Up, followed by the Megan Thee Stallion collab âPop Itâ from his 2021 album Big Bank. He released a collab with Icewear Vezzo, âPicking Sides,â around the time of the April arrest, followed by his From Trap to Rap 2 album.