S. Samuel
Yung Joc has confirmed reports stating he is suing Diddy's Bad Boy and Block Entertainment over "outrageous clearance fees" plus unpaid royalties and advances for his first two projects.
The Atlanta-based emcee broke down the specifics behind his lawsuit.
“I haven’t been paid any royalties since I’ve been out, after over a million albums sold,” Joc said in an interview. “For my first album, they gave me a $25,000 advance when I was supposed to get more…Then I had a million dollar budget for my second album, never even got an advance off of it. For the third one they hit me with another $25,000, like I’m some chump in this sh*t. And I just got tired of it…Diddy said he’s got to stay out of it because it’s between me and Block Entertainment. I was never signed to Block Entertainment, but they’ve been interfering with a lot of my business. I feel like [Bad Boy] isn’t doing anything to try to intervene and help the situation.” (Billboard)
News broke out earlier this week of Joc’s decision to file a lawsuit against Diddyand company.
Joc plans to sue both labels due to contractual situations, unpaid royalties and advances and of course, lack of support. Joc says he’s even paid for his own PR, never got advance money and even says his former management (9196, owned by Big Block) got him in a “360” deal taking a piece of his money from every angle. SO what will happen? Time will tell. (Rap Basement)
Former Bad Boy artist Mark Curry recently wrote a book on what he calls Diddy’s “shady” practices.
“Even worse, Puff charged the artists for his appearances on their records and in the videos, usually without their realizing it until they received their royalty statements,” the first chapter reads. “That’s when they discovered that a large sum of their money had gone to fees which were doubled, tripled and even quadrupled because of Puff “special guest appearance. He charged artists, for example, for having his Bentley in their videos — which he insisted upon — then took a tax credit for business use of the car.” (Dancing With the Devil)
Joc’s relationship with Diddy began roughly three years ago.
He later hooked up with Russell “Block” Spencer and his Block Enterprises label and released the hard club track “It’s Goin’ Down” in early 2006. The track became an Atlanta favorite and eventually landed on the desk of Sean “Diddy” Combs. Spencer had already brought the group Boyz N da Hood to Diddy, and with Joc sounding like the very hot Young Jeezy and T.I., Diddy felt he had the right artist to take his fledgling Bad Boy South label to the top. Spencer inked a multi-million dollar deal with Bad Boy to sign Yung Joc and his label Mastermind along with Spencer’s own Block Enterprises. (All Music)
Diddy has yet to release a statement to the media.
