Megan Thee Stallion scores another legan win over Carl Crawford, J Prince, and their label 1501 Cert.
The Houston rapper’s contract dispute case is underway as a court on Wednesday granted the rapper a mini win and ordered that 1501 Certified Entertainment’s Carl Crawford and Rap-A-lot founder and 1501 business partner, J Prince are to give depositions, TMZ reported.
Megan Thee Stallion upped the ante on Tuesday (August 23) when she amended her current lawsuit and requested $1 million in damages for royalties and other payments, as well as a declaration that she had completed her obligations to produce four albums under the agreement with 1501 Certified Entertainment and that contract has officially ended.
1501 Certified’s J Prince and Crawford, however, dispute that Megan has completed her obligations as they do not consider her last two projects as “albums” as defined by the contract. They also claim that Megan owes them millions for monies they claim to have spent to develop her career before she was allegedly poached by Roc Nation.
However, Megan and her attorneys are taking the label executives to task and were successful in being granted an order from the court forcing the men to give depositions and account for every dime they claim they spent on the rapper or collected on her behalf.
Megan’s determination to end her relationship with 1501 Certified Ent saw a greater push after last week’s release of her fourth project, Traumazine.
On Tuesday, her new filings requested that the court allow her lawyers to question Crawford and Prince. The dates for the depositions have been set for J Prince to go first on October 24 and Crawford on October 25.
The location of the deposition would be in Houston, and the proceedings are to be recorded on video. A trial date has not been set as yet.
Megan’s lawsuit against the label is a master chess stroke and is also a first among artists who would usually stay in the label deal and work around it. However, the Houston rapper is not letting the label slide as she claims that she spent all of the money to produce and put her music out, while 1501 basically collected 60% of her earnings.
On Tuesday, both Crawford and J Prince lashed out at Megan’s move, with Prince calling the deal “generous” by industry standards and even accusing the Jay-Z-owned Roc Nation is influencing the artist.
“The truth is that Carl discovered, developed and fully financed MTS early in her career which led to a life changing distribution agreement for her with 300 Entertainment,” Prince said.
“From 1501’s earliest agreement with Megan, long before MTS [Megan Thee Stallion] was a household name; 1501 generously agreed to give Megan 40% of its PROFITS which is substantially more than the customary record royalty that a new artist receives from a record label,” J Prince wrote in a lengthy statement of Instagram. “Any attempt by MTS [Megan Thee Stallion] or RN [Roc Nation] to portray a contract that provides a new unknown artist with 40% of the label’s PROFITS as unconscionable or unfair is blatantly false and contrary to the customs or norms in the music industry.”
Crawford also had his petty two-bits to offer to the conversation as he sought to discredit Megan by claiming that she is not from Houston, although the rapper has always said she was born in San Antonio but raised in Houston.
Megan had also responded to the two label executives with her own incendiary responses where she denied that 1501 Certified developed her as an artist and instead pointed out that she is the only reason that label is successful as they were virtually unknown before her.
She also challenged the men to beat her in court if their claims were true. It seems that Megan has won this round, but Prince and Crawford are not going down without a fight so expect this legal battle between artist and label to play out in the courts as well as the public domain.
Carl Crawford and J. Prince have not responded to the latest development.
