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On Friday, the LA-based production company Phantom Labs sued Ye for $7.1 million, accusing him of failing to pay the firm for work it did on some of his highest-profile projects over the past year.
According to a copy of the lawsuit obtained by VICE, Ye’s been racking up unpaid bills since October of 2021. Phantom claims that though it sent Ye “multiple demand letters” asking him to settle his tab, he has “inexplicably” refused to pay up.
Ye, a certified billionaire, has yet to make them whole by “one cent.”
“We are incredibly proud of the work that we did with Ye and are disappointed that such a fruitful relationship has come to this,” a spokesperson for Phantom Labs said in a statement provided to Variety. “A celebrity weaponizing fame and reputation to take advantage of eager collaborators is simply unacceptable.”
In the suit, Phantom claims it shelled out more than $1 million producing several Sunday Services for Kanye and $2.27 million on his Donda 2 listening party in Miami. The firm also says it spent $500,000 on a recording of the 2021 “Free Larry Hoover” benefit show he and Drake held in LA. Additionally, Phantom claims it put up millions more for various other projects of Ye’s.
Phantom also spent $1.06 million producing his headline set at this year’s Coachella before he canceled at the last minute. The company had agreed to front Kanye all that money based on “promises” he would pay back what it spent on his behalf, along with a 20 percent fee for its work. But he still hasn’t coughed up “one cent” of what he owes, the suit claims.
Phantom sued Ye for breach of contract, but according to the lawsuit, many of those contracts were established orally, whether during in-person meetings or over the phone. Others were executed via text messages and emails, making it much more difficult to prove and will likely extend the timetable for a legal resolution.
Ye is racking up the legal bills.
Earlier this month, West was served a similar lawsuit from a fashion rental company, the David Casavant Archive, which alleges he has stopped paying rental fees for 13 items that are “rare, esteemed pieces valued for their scarcity and importance in fashion history.” West has not commented on that allegation according to The Guardian.
Last month, house music star Marshall Jefferson sued West, alleging that he sampled Jefferson’s track Move Your Body without a licence. In May, the Texas-based Bishop David P Moten also sued West over an uncleared sample, after fragments of a Moten sermon were used on West’s track Come to Life.
Ye’s representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the lawsuit.
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