MF DOOM’s Widow and Estate Sue Rapper’s Former A&R, Seek Return of His Personal Notebooks

Jasmine Dumile Thompson, the widow of the late MF DOOM, and Gasoline Drawls, the LLC that controls his mental property, have sued DOOM’s former A&R Egon Alapatt for copyright infringement, fraud, intentional misrepresentation and unjust enrichment. The plaintiffs declare they maintain the rights to 31 of the late rapper’s notebooks at present in Alapatt’s possession. The notebooks include rap lyrics, notes, rhymes from beforehand launched and unreleased songs, drawings, and different concepts that the plaintiffs declare is DOOM’s mental property. The grievance, filed in U.S. District Court docket for the Central District of California, additionally names 50 “Does,” or people and/or entities whose names and capacities are at present not identified, appearing in live performance with Alapatt.

Within the grievance, the plaintiffs are searching for an an injunction requiring the return of the notebooks, the destruction of any copies, and prevention of additional replica or publication of the mental property contained within the notebooks. They declare Alapatt lied about how the notebooks got here into his possession, and that the lie dissuaded from them pursuing authorized motion in opposition to him, constituting fraud. They allege that Alapatt’s possession and duplication of the notebooks has allowed him to reap “a considerable financial profit” and that they require compensation. They’re searching for a declaratory judgment from the Court docket that the notebooks are their property and never Alapatt’s.

DOOM met Alapatt whereas the latter was the final supervisor and A&R of Stones Throw Data. Alapatt is answerable for introducing DOOM and Madlib, ensuing of their 2004 collaborative album Madvillainy. In 2009, DOOM officiated Alapatt’s wedding. The grievance alleges that DOOM stored the gathering of notebooks in his Los Angeles studio, and by 2010 there have been 31 of them. After touring to the UK that 12 months, he was unable to return attributable to immigration issues. The plaintiffs declare that in 2016, whereas DOOM was within the UK, Alapatt took possession of the notebooks. She claims he advised DOOM that he paid the studio’s landlord “again hire” to forestall the notebooks from being destroyed, and that when DOOM requested him to return the notebooks, he refused.

When reached by e mail, Alapatt’s lawyer mentioned:

“Mr. Alapatt seems to be ahead to his day in courtroom to dismiss these frivolous and unfaithful allegations. Mr. Alapatt rescued these books from DOOM’s unpaid landlord who had taken possession of all of his belongings. With DOOM’s blessing, Mr. Alapatt supposed to donate the books to both the Smithsonian or the Cornell College Hip Hop Archive, the place they might be thought-about and studied by students, in the identical means that manuscripts by nice poets or sheet music by nice composers are. Mr. Alapatt will do every part he can to make sure that these traditionally important books are archived and guarded.”