Hip Hop

XXXTentacion’s Mom Cleopatra Files Lawsuit Against X’s Collaborator Jimmy Duval

Cleopatra Bernard and XXXTentacion
Cleopatra Bernard and XXXTentacion

XXXTentacion’s legacy is sadly being soiled by a lot of legal drama at the hands of those close to him.

A year and a half after his untimely death, fans are still keeping XXXTentacion close to their hearts by playing his music at a consistent rate. The “Look At Me” rapper was the victim of a fatal robbery as he left a motorcycle dealership in Florida in June 2018. Two armed men had blocked his vehicle from leaving the premises and stole a Louis Vuitton bag, which contained $50,000. During the incident, Triple X was shot multiple times, and he was pronounced dead upon arrival at the hospital.

As is typical following an artist’s death, the 20-year-old’s popularity soared. The increase in music sales led to his estate, deciding to release songs that he had been working on at the time of his passing. The posthumous releases resulted in what became Triple X’s third studio album entitled Skins and featured the track “Bad!”. Several more singles and a whole additional album followed, with Bad Vibes Forever hitting the shelves at the beginning of December.

XXXTentacion and Cleopatra / Instagram

At the start of 2019, Jimmy Duval sued the estate for $2 million, claiming that he was not awarded proper royalties for his work on “Look At Me” in 2015. The late rapper’s mom, Cleopatra Bernard, is now countersuing, arguing that Duval was given proper credit as a co-author, The Blast reported. Bernard claims that her son had a deal with Duval, who was also a close friend, in which the producer would receive 50%, and another producer would get half of that. It then emerged that a singer named Mala alleged that the song had been plagiarised from one of his own, and he was given Duval’s portion of the interest.

The court documents filed by Bernard stated, “Defendants’ claim reveals a complete lack of understanding as to the music industry’s current mechanism for attributing producer credits. It is well known that, up until very recently, the vast majority of digital content providers, such as Apple Music, Spotify, Pandora, SoundCloud, etc., did not have a mechanism by which producers could be credited.”

We hope that people will remember X for his music at the end of the day.