No one ever said being a famous rapper was easy. From street beefs,
jealous fans, and label pressures.
You also have to deal with the occasional lawsuit.
Here's a look at a few famous rappers who got sued.
6ix9ine
Tekashi69 is one of the most hated figures in rap
after he snitched on the Nine Trey Gangster Bloods in 2019
But, if there is one thing that 6ix9ine is good at it's playing a villain
and in 2021, the Rappers was sued for allegedly hitting the stripper in the
head with a champagne bottle after someone made a comment
about him being a snitch. On February, 20th 2021 6ix9ine and his crew
were at the Gold Rush Cabaret a strip club in Miami, Florida
According to the lawsuit, a fight broke out
after someone in the club called 6ix9ine a rat.
The situation got really crazy after 6ix9ine threw a
champagne bottle at the person who made the comments
but missed and hit one of the dancers named Alexis Salaberrios.
The bottle hit her in the head and she had to be taken
to the hospital to be treated for a serious injury.
Salaberrios later sued both 6ix9ine and the club.
She accused the club of negligence for not having proper security
at the event, in the lawsuit, she claimed that “The Gold Rush
intentionally chose to put profits over safety by allowing
6ix9ine into its club knowing that violence was likely to occur.
When it did occur, Tekashi was ushered out of the backdoor and protected"
6ix9ine's lawyer claims that his client is innocent
and the video surveillance footage from the club that night will prove it.
He claims that Salaberrios's lawsuit is a shameless cash grab
and the Rappers will look to have the case dismissed
when it's properly served to him. By now,
Every rap fan knows the story of 6ix9ine's rise to fame.
He rose to the heights of the rap game and the billboard
charged through his association with the Nine Trey Gangsta Bloods
only to turn around and snitch on him when they all got caught up
in federal charges For his cooperation with the police.
6ix9ine was only sentenced to 2 years in prison,
but most of his co defendants received much harsher sentences
because of his testimony after being released from prison in March 2020
At the beginning of the Coronavirus pandemic,
the rapper attempted to relaunch his career.
Even though he's had some success, he hasn't come close to reaching the
point he was at before being labeled a snitch. So it's not hard
to understand why the Rappers got so angry that
someone called him a rat at the strip club. The latest lawsuit
is just another controversy in the artist's already wild career.
If any other Rappers hit a female in the head with a
champagne bottle at a strip club, it would probably be major news
But because Tekashis career has been one jaw-dropping scandal after the next
this incident barely receives any attention
Hopefully Salaberrios get the justice she deserves
if she was actually injured and not just doing it for the cash
But 6ix9ine does have some connections with law enforcement,
so the case will likely settle out of court
If you thought that was crazy, this next rappers was sued
for allegedly losing a Bentley Bentayga a rental truck.
Yup, Here's what happened
Offset
Offset is one third of the Migos
one of the most popular rap groups in the past decade
The rapper has multiple platinum hits under his belt and
has a daughter with another one of the hottest rappers of this generation,
Cardi B, But being a superstar doesn't protect you from the law
and in February 2021, Offset was sued for disappearing
with a Bentley Bentayga rental car.
The rappers was sued by a company called Platinum Transportation Group
a luxury rental car business based in LA.
They claimed that Offset rented the car and never returned it
Offset and another party rented the vehicle back in May 2020
and originally claimed they only needed it for a few days.
He was making payments on it for a while, then suddenly stopped
and never brought the vehicle back. The company sued him for over $100,000
in missed revenue claiming the vehicle was offered at a rate of $600 per day
They initially called him about the car
and the Rappers kept pushing back the return date
He had a new contract drafted and agreed to keep the vehicle through July,
but right after July 4th, he called the company back
and told them he had no idea where the car was
without offering a rational explanation after July 25th,
he stopped making payments. naturally the company sued him
for damages and the rappers will have to give an explanation in court
Offset has a history of crashing expensive cars
having crashed his Dodge Challenger back in 2018.
Check out our video on Rapper car crashes for more information
on this accident. Or maybe he rented it for a member of his entourage,
and generally lost track of it. Offset has the money to pay for it,
so he'll probably just settle rather than taking it to court
In the future. He should probably hire an assistant to
handle tasks like renting car, so he doesn't lose another Bentley
This next rappers got hit with copyright
and was sued by his own manager after releasing a terrible album
Chance the Rapper
Chance the Rapper is an artist from Chicago Illinois,
who blew up with his mixtape Acid Rap back in 2013.
He started gaining attention right around the same time
that was shining the spotlight on the city
but became more with a style that was an overnight success.
Many casual fans don't know that Chance actually
released the mixtape before Acid Rap called 10 Day
that got him Sued in 2017. Chance released the album in 2012
after a 10 day suspension from high school for smoking weed.
It caught the attention of several blogs and other media outlets,
but didn't achieve much commercial success.
There's a song on the mixtape called Windows that features a
sample from the Lonnie Liston Smith song called Bridge Through Time
At the time of the project's release Chance was just a local backpack rapper
in Chicago without any serious music industry credentials
so the song slid under the radar, but after he blew up
and became a world famous superstar,
many fans started to dig into his back catalog,
including a New York City based jazz musician and composer
named Abdul Wali Muhammad. Abdul worked on the original version of
Bridge Through Time and filed a copyright claim for the track back in 1979.
The composer claimed that chance never cleared the sample with him
and when he sent a notice to Chances management team,
he didn't get a response. For the track, Chance Remix and Apollo Brown beat
called Bridge Through Time. It's likely that the rappers simply use the beat
and didn't realize it contained an unlicensed sample
Sampling laws are pretty indirect when it comes to mixtapes.
Even though the mixtape was released for free on platforms like DatPiff
and Mixtape Monkey, there is an argument to be made that Chance built
a multi-million dollar brand that all started with that mixtape
He also made money by selling merch
and doing performances where he probably played the song.
In 2012, the same year that 10 Day was released
Mac Miller got sued by Rappers Lord Finesse
for Remixing one of his songs on his breakout mixtape K.I.D.S.
even though that was a free mixtape. That case settled out of court
But it established that creators can sue artists for using unlicensed sample
even on music that was released for free
Chance must have reached an agreement with Abdul Wali Muhammad
because the song is now available to stream on all platforms,
but it was delayed from being released on commercial streaming re-release of
the album in 2019 which shows that it may have been a last-minute settlement
But that's not the only time Chance the Rapper got sued
In 2020, he was sued by his former manager for 3 million dollars
in unpaid royalties and responded with his own counter suit in 2021.
Despite the success of acid rap and his follow up project Coloring Book
his debut album, The Big Day, didn't live up to the hype
Even though the album debuted at number two on the billboard charts,
it received mixed reviews from fans
with many claiming that it was his worst project by far.
it spawned several memes about how it mainly focused on his love of his wife
and his faith in Jesus in a way that wasn't as interesting or deep
as his previous projects and featured a more lighthearted
almost childish delivery. Then in December 2020, Chance was sued
by his former manager Pat Corcoran for breach of contract and unpaid royalty
Chance and Corcoran started doing business together back in 2012
before the artist was a household name, they had an oral contract
that chance would pay him 15% of the revenue that he earned from album sales
merch, touring, and anything else. Chance honored this agreement
up until Apri 2020 when he notified Corcoran
that he was terminating their relationship. Corcoran hit Chance
with a 3 million dollars lawsuit for commissions due
from his first three albums as well as touring merch
and his appearance on the Netflix series, Hustle & Flow.
He claims that he expressed concern about Chance's decision
to release The Big Day given the amount of time
and energy that was put into the project which Chance ignored.
When the album got a poor reception, Chance blamed him
and terminated the contract because he was bitter about the
lack of support from fans. Chance responded by countersuing
Corcoran in February 2021, claiming that the album's flop
was not the reason he terminated the agreement.
Chance claims that his former manager exploited his position
and use his brand to propel his own business ventures.
He accuses his former manager of deception, intimidation and verbal abuse.
He also accuses Corcoran of using the Artist's name to boost his own wine
business called No Fine Print and demand kickbacks from brands
for using Chance's likeness. The suit is yet to be ruled upon by a court,
so it's tough to decide which side of the story is true.
But Chance is a much bigger name in the industry than Corcoran,
so it's more likely to end in his favor
especially if they only had an oral agreement. If Chance's claims are true,
it'll be hard for Corcoran to argue that he's owed anything
because they didn't have a written contract to begin with
and the manager was not well established in the music industry
before doing business with Chance. So he's lucky that chance paid
him anything at all if you thought that was crazy.
These next artist recently got sued for committing over 150 instances
of copyright infringement in more than 100 songs dating back almost 20 years
Three 6 Mafia
Three 6 Mafia are a legendary hip hop group from Memphis, Tennessee,
known for iconic bangers like Slob on My Knob and Sippin on Some Syrup
featuring UGK. Members of the group include Juicy J, DJ Paul Gangsta Boo
Crunchy Black and Koopsta Knicca. The group started out as an
underground horror rap crew, but eventually went on to receive
major commercial success even winning a Grammy in 2006 with the track
“It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp“ from the film Hustle & Flow.
But with major commercial success also comes negative attention and in 2020
and in 2020 the group was sued by nine Memphis rappers who claimed the group
has sampled their music without their permission
or paying them any royalties. The Memphis rap sound of the early 90s
had a distinctive style that was heavily influenced by both
horrorcore and the chopped and screwed sound coming out of Houston.
The sound was dark, lo-fi, and heavily sample-based.
Groups would often create beats using small segments of
another rappers voice on the hook or embedded in the
instrumental in a way that was almost impossible to detect
where the sample came from. this practice was popular for
many Rappers and groups at that time. But you went on to have
the same level of commercial success as Three 6 Mafia.
Now many rappers who the artist sampled along the way
are coming forward to demand royalty. One of the artists,
a rapper named Kingpin Skinny Pimp said that he never even
realized he was included in certain songs until
fans and people close to him brought it to his attention.
Now he's taking part in the lawsuit to recoup some of those lost royalties.
Sampling laws have come a long way since the early 90s
just like in Chance the Rapper's case. Some of these samples may have been
on mixtapes that were never commercially released,
but ended up generating revenue for the artists in other ways.
It's also likely that the group is so used to getting away
using the unlicensed samples
that they even included them on major commercial projects
in which case they'll almost certainly have to fork over some royalties.
It's going to be a tough case to beat
because the lawsuit identifies over 150 instances of copyright infringement
in over 100 songs dating back to 1993 If there were just a handful of tracks
the artist could probably settle for a small amount
or simply stop performing those songs.
But the lawsuit targets a major part of their catalog.
It all depends on how obvious the samples are on the track,
and if a judge decides that they had a major impact
on the song's commercial success. Either way Three 6 Mafia is
likely going to have to break out the checkbook
and compensate their fellow Memphis rappers for using their sound
whether they'll have to give up a portion of the ownership of those records