Three of Nelly’s former St. Lunatics bandmates have now formally dropped out of a lawsuit seeking royalties from the rapper’s breakout album Country Grammar – two months after they said they hadn’t wanted to sue him in the first place.
The lawsuit, which claims the Lunatics contributed to the album but that Nelly cut them out of the credits, was first filed in September by Ali (Ali Jones), Murphy Lee (Tohri Harper), Kyjuan (Robert Kyjuan) and City Spud (Lavell Webb). But Lee, Kyjuan and Spud quickly rebelled — saying they never consented to the lawsuit and demanded that they be removed from the case immediately.
In an updated version filed Friday, the lawyers behind the lawsuit finally did so – meaning the case is now a dispute between Ali and Nelly alone. Ali’s attorney who filed the case, Precious Felder Gates, did not immediately return a request for comment on Monday.
A group of high school friends from St. Louis, the St. Lunatics rose to prominence in the late 1990s with “Gimme What U Got”, and their debut album Free City — released a year after Country Grammar — was a hit of its own, reaching No. 3 on the Billboard 200.
In their Sept. 18 complaint, the bandmates claimed that Nelly had repeatedly “manipulated” them into falsely thinking they’d be paid for their work on the 2000 album, which spent five weeks atop the Billboard 200. But they said he never made good on the promises.
“Every time plaintiffs confronted defendant Haynes [he] would assure them as ‘friends’ he would never prevent them from receiving the financial success they were entitled to,” the lawsuit reads. “Unfortunately, plaintiffs, reasonably believing that their friend and former band member would never steal credit for writing the original compositions, did not initially pursue any legal remedies.”
But in early October, Lee, Kyjuan and Spud joined Nelly on stage for his performance at the American Music Awards – a seemingly strange move for jilted bandmates engaged in active litigation. Days later, it made more sense: They never wanted to sue Nelly.
As Billboard reported at the time, a lawyer representing the trio had privately sent a letter just a week after the case was filed, warning the attorneys behind the case that Lee, Kyjuan and Spud had “informed me that they did not authorize you to include them as plaintiffs.”
“They are hereby demanding you remove their names forthwith,” N. Scott Rosenblum wrote in the Sept. 24 letter, which was obtained by Billboard. “Failure to do so will cause them to explore any and all legal remedies available to them.”
In Friday’s updated lawsuit, the attorneys for Ali did just that, removing Lee, Kyjuan and Spud from the list of plaintiffs. But they also included new substantive allegations as part of their amended complaint.
In one major change, they added HarbourView Equity Partners to the list of defendants, citing Nelly’s $50 million catalog sale to the company last summer. Calling it a “substantial transaction,” Ali’s attorneys suggested that the big deal helped spark the lawsuit.
“At this juncture, it became apparent that, notwithstanding defendant Haynes’ repeated assurances … defendant would not fulfill his longstanding promises to compensate plaintiff,” Ali’s attorneys wrote.
A representative for HarbourView did not immediately return a request for comment on Monday.
