Kanye West was slapped with a lawsuit by a New York composer who claims he worked long hours for the entertainer only to be misled by him and his team, In Touch can exclusively report.
According to court documents obtained by In Touch, New York-based musician and composer Willie Alexander sued Kanye, 47, Very Good Touring, Inc., Yeezy LLC and Access Opera.
Willie accused the defendants of negligent misrepresentation and misappropriation of likeness. In his suit, Willie said Kanye and Good Opera Music approached him through a mutual friend, Charles Carter, in September 2019.
Willie said Charles was to put in charge of hiring him to compose the opera Nebuchadnezzar for Kanye.
In 2019, Kanye put on the opera at the Hollywood Bowl. He also had a second religious-themed opera called Mary.
In the lawsuit, Willie said he was told that Kanye needed assistance writing Nebuchadnezzar and “doctoring the score.”
He said Kanye’s associates, “informed and urged Mr. Alexander to essentially drop everything and immediately fly out to Cody, Wyoming, because Nebuchadnezzar was set to take place in five days.
Mr. Alexander was required to meet with the rest of the production team the following day at 8:00 a.m.” Charles said he agreed to the last-minute request but first required that he be contractually retained. He asked for no less than $15,000 for his work.
“The rate was based on the nature and duration of the work and the short notice that required him to drop a project mid- rehearsal, potentially souring long-established work relationships,” his lawsuit read.
Charles said Kanye’s associate didn’t agree but insisted he fly out to work on the project. Charles countered by offering $6,000. The composer said he reluctantly agreed.
The composer claimed he arrived in Wyoming to discover that Nebuchadnezzar had not been written at all and that Kanye was looking to him to write the whole thing in four days.
The composer said he continued working on the project until the day of the performance. Charles said he was then contracted to work on Kanye’s second opera, Mary. He said he not been paid for the first opera at this point. He started work on Mary, according to the suit.
The composer said he worked a substantial amount of time on Mary.
Charles said he was never informed that Nebuchadnezzar would be livestreamed on the music steaming app Tidal. He said, “Good Opera Music failed to further inform [Charles] that Nebuchadnezzar’s live recording would be streamed … and [Charles] was not informed that the recording of the performance would be subsequently used in [Kanye’s] future projects.
“Defendants’ misappropriation led to their commercial and economic advantage or benefit. Through negotiations with Tidal, [Kanye and his company were] paid $4 million.As a result, the production was done for free, but Defendants got money back on the investment.”
Charles’ lawyer argued, “[Kanye’s associate] misrepresented to [Charles] that in his ‘professional experience’ $6,000 was a ‘reasonable rate’ in comparison to [Charles’] standard rate of $15,000 for composing to secure more work with [Kanye].”
He added, “[Kanye’s associate] had no reasonable grounds to believe these misrepresentations were true. [Kanye’s associate] had knowledge that Nebuchadnezzar was unfinished at the time he was engaging [Charles] because he sent [Charles] an incomplete script of the opera. Yet, Defendants failed to inform [Charles] until he arrived in Wyoming, and upon his immediate arrival, [Charles] was asked to work on and compose the opera. The time commitment required for the work was far more than Defendants led [Charles] to believe leaving [Charles] to miss out on other work opportunities.” “[Charles] has been substantially harmed by Defendants misrepresentations because, to their detriment, [Charles] accepted lower rate of pay than the value of their services and missed auditions and other opera opportunities to work whilst Defendants delayed and reduced payments,” the suit read.
Charles’ lawsuit demanded unspecified damages. Kanye has yet to respond.
As In Touch previously reported, Kanye was recently sued by his ex-assistant over an alleged assault.
