B.o.B performing live. Photo Credit: Mark Guim
Rapper B.o.B (full name Bobby Ray Simmons Jr.) is officially facing a multimillion-dollar lawsuit from Round Hill Music, its namesake royalty fund, and an entity called Artists Rights Management.
Round Hill Music just recently submitted the breach-of-contract complaint against 33-year-old B.o.B to a New York federal court, also naming the “Nothin’ On You” artist’s touring company, Bobby Ray Touring, as a defendant.
Legal filings show that the six-time Grammy nominee B.o.B will have 20 days to respond to the summons at hand (or 30 days if it isn’t “personally delivered” to him in New York). But said legal filings, spanning only three pages, reveal little else about the case ahead of the full complaint’s public release.
In any event, the plaintiffs allege that B.o.B and his touring operation in early 2017 inked a deal with a company called RAZOR/TEI, affording the entity “all right, title and interest to collect certain royalties from the public performance of all sound recordings featuring” the rapper as well as “a first-priority security interest in certain rights associated with the sound recording performance rights and revenues.”
This purchasing party is then said to have transferred the rights in question to the aforementioned Artists Rights Management, which Round Hill’s second royalty fund subsequently bought. In “an intentional violation” of the original agreement with RAZOR/TEI, though, B.o.B allegedly “prevented” the filing businesses from collecting the royalties to which they “are contractually entitled,” the document states.
The plaintiffs are seeking at least $3 million in damages for the alleged violation, and in a statement provided to TMZ, North Carolina-born B.o.B seemed to indicate that his former manager may have been responsible for negotiating and finalizing the contracts that prompted the action.
“I have not seen the lawsuit but am aware my former manager had entered into agreements without my knowledge,” said B.o.B. “I take my business seriously and look forward to getting to the truth of what happened.”
Aside from this brief commentary, B.o.B doesn’t appear to have publicly addressed the situation. However, the “Airplanes” artist just recently took to Instagram to direct fans to his newly released “Artificial Intelligence” track, part of his sequel to 2016’s Elements. Despite the 11.41 million monthly listeners that the rapper boasts on Spotify, the song looks to be live exclusively on SoundCloud at the moment.
In other music industry legal battles, Snapchat earlier in May was named in a copyright infringement lawsuit from Switzerland’s SUISA, filed in Germany, whereas April brought with it separate infringement actions against Calvin Harris (filed in France) and Justin Bieber (submitted to an LA court).