{"id":2676,"date":"2024-09-19T15:45:20","date_gmt":"2024-09-19T15:45:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/nelly-sued-by-st-lunatics-in-copyright-lawsuit-over-country-grammar\/"},"modified":"2024-09-19T15:45:20","modified_gmt":"2024-09-19T15:45:20","slug":"nelly-sued-by-st-lunatics-in-copyright-lawsuit-over-country-grammar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/nelly-sued-by-st-lunatics-in-copyright-lawsuit-over-country-grammar\/","title":{"rendered":"Nelly Sued By St. Lunatics in Copyright Lawsuit Over ‘Country Grammar’"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n

\n\tDecades after Nelly<\/a> released his chart-topping breakout Country Grammar<\/em>, he\u2019s facing a new lawsuit over the album from his St. Lunatics groupmates \u2013 who claim that the star cut them out of the credits and the royalty payments.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn a complaint filed Wednesday in Manhattan federal court, attorneys for the St. Lunatics allege that Nelly (Cornell Haynes<\/strong>) repeatedly \u201cmanipulated\u201d them into falsely thinking they\u2019d be paid for their work on the 2000 album, which spent five weeks atop the Billboard 200.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cEvery time plaintiffs confronted defendant Haynes [he] would assure them as \u2018friends\u2019 he would never prevent them from receiving the financial success they were entitled to,\u201d the lawsuit reads. \u201cUnfortunately, plaintiffs, reasonably believing that their friend and former band member would never steal credit for writing the original compositions, did not initially pursue any legal remedies.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe case was filed by St. Lunatics members Ali (Ali Jones<\/strong>), Murphy Lee<\/a> (Tohri Harper<\/strong>), Kyjuan (Robert Kyjuan<\/strong>) and City Spud (Lavell Webb<\/strong>). Slo Down (Corey Edwards<\/strong>), another former member of the group, is not named as a plaintiff.<\/p>\n

\n\tA spokesperson for Nelly did not immediately return a request for comment.<\/p>\n

\n\tA group of high school friends from St. Louis, the St. Lunatics rose to prominence in the late 1990s with \u201cGimme What U Got\u201d, and their debut album Free City<\/em> \u2013 released a year after Country Grammar <\/em>\u2013 was a hit of its own, reaching No. 3 on the Billboard 200.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe various members of the group are repeatedly listed as co-writers in the public credits for numerous songs on Country Grammar<\/em>, most notably with City Spud credited as a co-writer and co-performer on the single \u201cRide Wit Me,\u201d which spent 29 weeks on the Hot 100.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn the new lawsuit, the group members say they were involved with more songs than they were credited for, including \u201cSteal the Show,\u201d \u201cThicky Thick Girl,\u201d \u201cBatter Up,\u201d and \u201cWrap Sumden.\u201d The most notable is the title track \u201cCountry Grammar,\u201d which reached No. 7 on the singles chart; in public databases, the song only credits Nelly and producer Jason Epperson.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe groupmates say that during and after the Country Grammar<\/em> recording session, Nelly \u201cprivately and publicly acknowledged that plaintiffs were the lyric writers\u201d and \u201cpromised to ensure that plaintiffs received writing and publishing credit.\u201d But decades later, in 2020, the St. Lunatics members say they \u201cdiscovered that defendant Haynes had been lying to them the entire time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cDespite repeatedly promising plaintiffs that they would receive full recognition and credit\u2026 it eventually became clear that defendant Haynes had no intention of providing the plaintiffs with any such credit or recognition,\u201d the group\u2019s attorneys write.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen the group members realized Nelly had \u201cfailed to provide proper credit and publishing income,\u201d they say they hired an attorney who reached out to Universal Music Publishing Group. The letter was relayed to Nelly\u2019s attorneys, who they say \u201cexpressly repudiated\u201d their claims to credit in 2021.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cPlaintiffs had no alternative but to commence legal proceedings against Defendants,\u201d the lawsuit reads.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe case could face an important procedural hurdle. Although copyright infringement <\/em>lawsuits can be filed decades after an infringing song is released, disputes over copyright ownership <\/em>face a stricter three-year statute of limitations.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe current lawsuit is styled as an infringement case, with the St. Lunatics alleging that Nelly has unfairly used their songs without permission. But the first argument from Nelly\u2019s attorneys will likely be that the case is really a dispute over ownership \u2013 and thus was filed years too late.<\/p>\n

\n\tAn attorney for the plaintiffs did not immediately return a request for comment.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Decades after Nelly released his chart-topping breakout Country Grammar, he\u2019s facing a new lawsuit over the album from his St. Lunatics groupmates \u2013 who claim that the star […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2677,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[429,3489,3490,303,3488,3487,412],"class_list":["post-2676","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lawyers","tag-copyright","tag-country","tag-grammar","tag-lawsuit","tag-lunatics","tag-nelly","tag-sued"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2676","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2676"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2676\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}