Migos is suing longtime attorney Damien Granderson.
Variety reports the rap trio – Quavious Marshall (Quavo), Kiari Cephus (Offset), Kirsnick Ball (Takeoff) – filed a complaint against Granderson, claiming that he “abused his position of trust as Migos’ fiduciary from the moment he was retained as Migos’ lawyer.”
They also allege Granderson, who they’re suing along with his current firm, Granderson Des Rochers, and his previous one, Davis Shapiro, “cheated [the group] out of millions of dollars,” accusing him of “glaring conflicts of interest” and favouring the band’s label, Quality Control Music (QCM), which he also represented.
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“Granderson was working with Migos since the group’s early days, including on the 2014 deal to have 300 Entertainment distribute Migos’ debut album, Yung Rich Nation,” writes attorney Bryan Freedman in the complaint, published by The Hollywood Reporter. “At that time, the group’s members were in their late teens and early twenties, and had nothing more than a high school education.”
THR states, “Freedman argues Granderson saw them as ‘easy targets’ and coaxed them into a one-sided deal for the benefit of QCM.”
Variety reports Granderson’s “pricey exit arrangement” for the group to join with Capitol after leaving 300 Entertainment in 2017 cost them “millions of dollars.”
“Granderson later exacerbated the harm he caused to Migos by negotiating a 2018 amendment to the exclusive label agreement between QCM and Capitol Records,” Freedman continues. “That amendment triggered an extension of the exclusive recording agreement between QCM and Migos, which Granderson knew to contain terms that were unconscionable for Migos.”
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The complaint also states that Granderson “concealed” from the group that QCM had an exclusive label deal with Capitol that “would allow Capitol to distribute all albums that QCM produced and that QCM was actually profiting far more handsomely than was apparent from the face of the documents that Granderson personally presented to Migos for immediate execution.”
The lawsuit accuses Granderson of “betray[ing] Migos when he failed [to] disclose both the complete nature of his relationship with QCM and the complete nature of the conflict in representing both QCM and Migos,” as well as taking “more compensation that is customary for other lawyers in the field” and of “incompetence” in other negotiations.
The suit doesn’t specify how much Migos is seeking apart from stating that it’s “millions of dollars.”
THR says the band is suing for “professional malpractice, breach of fiduciary duty, violation of California Business & Professions Code 6147 and 6148 (which require contingency fee agreements to be made in writing), unfair competition and unjust enrichment.”
