{"id":3177,"date":"2024-11-01T01:41:15","date_gmt":"2024-11-01T01:41:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/madlib-sues-former-manager-for-mismanagement-financial-self-dealing\/"},"modified":"2024-11-01T01:41:15","modified_gmt":"2024-11-01T01:41:15","slug":"madlib-sues-former-manager-for-mismanagement-financial-self-dealing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/madlib-sues-former-manager-for-mismanagement-financial-self-dealing\/","title":{"rendered":"Madlib Sues Former Manager for Mismanagement, Financial Self-Dealing"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n

\n\tLegendary hip-hop producer Madlib<\/a> has filed a lawsuit against his former manager Eothen \u201cEgon\u201d Alapatt<\/strong>, alleging the executive abused his role to claim undue profits from Madlib\u2019s music and merch companies, among other accusations.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn a complaint filed Thursday (Oct. 31) in Los Angeles court, attorneys for Madlib say Alapatt began managing Madlib\u2019s business affairs around 2010 when the famed producer left his deal with Stones Throw Records \u2014 where Alapatt worked as an executive \u2014 in an effort to \u201cown and control his music.\u201d Around that time, the complaint alleges that Alapatt was fired from Stones Throw.<\/p>\n

\n\tAccording to the lawsuit, Madlib trusted Alapatt to set up and manage two business entities (\u201cMadicine Show\u201d for his music interests and \u201cRapp Cats\u201d for his merchandise) in Madlib\u2019s name, with profits from the businesses to be shared between the two parties. However, Madlib allegedly discovered only recently that Alapatt was not only failing to properly run those businesses but was \u201calso engaged in rank self-dealing, concealing information from and repeatedly breaching his duties to Madlib, and otherwise engaging in persistent and pervasive mismanagement.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tThe complaint further alleges Alapatt abused his position by taking \u201ca fee off the top\u201d of all income generated by Madlib\u2019s label, Madicine Show, and that he \u201crefused to account to Madlib\u201d about his compensation and failed to provide any written agreements to the producer. Madlib\u2019s lawyers additionally claim that Alapatt refused to allow an audit of his own business, Now-Again \u2014 which they say Alapatt inserted under false pretenses as a go-between for Madicine Show and its distributor, Ingrooves \u2014 to ascertain what proceeds it earned from Madicine Show.<\/p>\n

\n\tElsewhere, the complaint alleges that Alapatt \u201cdirected a single lawyer and single accountant to represent him\u201d as well as Madlib, Madicine Show, Rapp Cats and Now-Again without Madlib\u2019s \u201cinformed consent\u201d and then \u201cdirected that lawyer and that accountant to refuse to cooperate with Madlib\u201d and the new professional team Madlib had assembled after his relationship with Alapatt went south.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe complaint states that Madlib only discovered the extent of Alapatt\u2019s alleged malfeasance in April 2023, when he finally managed, through \u201cforensic accounting,\u201d to learn more about the financials of Madicine Show and Rapp Cats during the period of 2018 to mid-2022. His lawyers claim this revealed \u201cseveral accounting irregularities\u201d and \u201ca lack of any backup documentation\u201d for several hundred thousand dollars in \u201c\u2018consulting,\u2019 \u2018commissions,\u2019 \u2018fees\u2019 or \u2018reimbursements’\u201d for Alapatt as well as a second named defendant, Jeffrey Carlson<\/strong>, a.k.a. Jeff Jank \u2014 an alleged associate of Alapatt\u2019s who formerly worked as an art director at Stones Throw and is described in the complaint as \u201ca member of Rapp Cats.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe complaint further claims that Alapatt took \u201ctens of thousands of dollars for personal expenses\u201d from the two business entities, and that there was no documentation of employee payroll, inventory or artist royalty statements.<\/p>\n

\n\tAlapatt also allegedly \u201ccaptur[ed] half of Madlib\u2019s producer royalties and advances for himself\u201d while locking Madlib out of his Ingrooves, Apple Music, Bandcamp, YouTube and Facebook accounts; the complaint also claims he locked Madlib out of the Instagram account for his trademarked alter-ego Quasimoto, a cartoon character that the producer used throughout his career for merchandise and music.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cMadlib has since demanded that Madicine Show and Rapp Cats be wound up and dissolved and that any contractual relationship with those entities\u2026be terminated,\u201d the complaint reads. \u201c[Alapatt] refuses to do so.\u201d Instead, it claims, Alapatt told Madlib that he\u2019s welcome to \u201c\u2018buy him out\u2019 of his interest in those entities or the underlying intellectual property.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThursday\u2019s lawsuit is the second lawsuit to be filed against Alapatt over the past year. Last October, the manager was also sued by the estate of Madlib\u2019s late collaborator MF DOOM for allegedly stealing the rapper\u2019s notebooks full of lyrics. In response to that suit, attorneys for Alapatt called the case \u201cbaseless and libelous,\u201d and characterized it as \u201cthe continuation of a year-long smear campaign.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tMadlib\u2019s team is seeking a jury trial and a judicially supervised wind-up and dissolution for Madicine Show and Rapp Cats, \u201cto include a full and complete accounting of the assets and liabilities of the entities [and] a determination of any unauthorized remuneration,\u201d among other requests. Madlib is also seeking damages from Alapatt and Now-Again.<\/p>\n

\n\tAlapatt and his attorney did not immediately respond to Billboard<\/em>\u2018s requests for comment. Carlson also did not immediately return a request for comment.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Legendary hip-hop producer Madlib has filed a lawsuit against his former manager Eothen \u201cEgon\u201d Alapatt, alleging the executive abused his role to claim undue profits from Madlib\u2019s music […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3178,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[212,3991,2511,3992,3993,479],"class_list":["post-3177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lawyers","tag-financial","tag-madlib","tag-manager","tag-mismanagement","tag-selfdealing","tag-sues"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3177","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=3177"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3177\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}