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Chance The Rapper responds to manager lawsuit

By Chris Cooke | Published on Monday 7 December 2020

Chance The Rapper has responded, via his legal team, to a lawsuit filed last week by his former manager. Pat Corcoran is suing in a bid to recover $3 million in commissions and expenditure that he says is owing after being sacked by his former client in April. He also wants to enforce an industry standard sunset clause so that he continues to get commissions for three more years.

In the lawsuit, Corcoran claims that Chance The Rapper, real name Chancelor Bennett, started to ignore his advice in early 2019 – instead allowing his father and brother to increasingly control his business affairs – resulting in the rushed release of an album that met with a mixed response among fans, in turn leading to poor ticket sales and a cancelled tour. He claims that Bennett then blamed him for those issues, ultimately leading to his sacking earlier this year.

But, a legal rep for the rapper claims that Corcoran has been paid all the commissions he is legally due, adding that his version of Bennett’s recent career is inaccurate and self-serving.

“Mr Corcoran has filed a suit for allegedly unpaid commissions”, Bennett’s legal team said on Friday. “In fact, Mr Corcoran has been paid all of the commissions to which he is legally entitled”.

They added: “Most of the complaint consists of self-serving and fabricated allegations that are wholly unrelated to Mr Corcoran’s claim for commissions and were plainly included in a calculated attempt to seek attention. Those allegations are wholly without merit, are grossly offensive and we will respond to them within the context of the litigation”.

As Bennett’s fans got about debating the big bust up between the rapper and his former manager, Dionne Warwick took to Twitter to ask a much more important question. “Hi, Chance The Rapper”, she tweeted, “If you are very obviously a rapper why did you put it in your stage name? I cannot stop thinking about this”.

“Sorry I’m still freaking out that u know who I am. This is amazing!” he then replied. “I will be whatever you wanna call me Ms Warwick”.

Warwick tweeted back: “Of course I know you – you’re THE rapper – let’s rap together – I’ll message you”, while her son Damon Elliott decided to intervene, tweeting: “Mom that’s it! As soon as this quarantine is over I’m taking your iPhone away from you… time to go back to a flip phone”.

So that’s a nice fun distraction from all the legal dramas.

Listen to more discussion on this lawsuit on this week’s edition of our Setlist podcast.