Urban Islandz NEWS: Michael Savely, a NYC street drummer, recently filed a lawsuit MTV and its parent company Viacom for the use of his image in their Nicki Minaj: My Time Now documentary.
Savely, known as Mike Alaska, filed a suit in a New Jersey Federal Court earlier this week, accusing MTV of violating his privacy and tarnishing his image.
Savely, who appears for a brief second in the opening sequence of the film, said he never gave producers permission to use his image and the documentary has negatively impacted his livelihood including t-shirt sales and teaching jobs he uses as income.
In the lawsuit, Savely describes his image as “modern” and “conservative” and criticized Nicki Minaj for her “provocative style of dress, use of profanity and glorification of a specific lifestyle.”
