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Frank Ocean settles lawsuit with producer

By | Published on Monday 28 January 2019

Frank Ocean

Frank Ocean and Om’Mas Keith have reportedly reached a settlement in a case which saw both of them sue the other over what involvement the producer did or did not have with the singer’s ‘Blonde’ album.

Ocean went legal in February last year after Keith registered himself as a co-writer on a number of ‘Blonde’ tracks via the database of collecting society ASCAP. Keith – who worked on Ocean’s previous album ‘Channel Orange’ – is not credited in the liner notes for the 2016 record, and Ocean’s lawsuit says that he did not “contribute any lyrics, melodies or music that would give rise to any claim of authorship”.

Keith then countersued in May, demanding that Ocean’s lawsuit be dismissed and saying that he produced and co-wrote the majority of the songs on ‘Blonde’. He claimed that he accepted a flat fee for his work on ‘Channel Orange’, but made it clear to Ocean that he would not accept the same deal for the new record. However, no specific deal was actually agreed before the album was released.

Now, according to The Blast, both men have dropped their lawsuits against each other after they agreed an undisclosed settlement. Whether this means Keith will now be acknowledged for the work he says he did – or not – remains to be seen.

Elsewhere in Frank Ocean news, his ‘Endless’ album, which was released as an exclusive 45 minute video on Apple Music in 2016, is now coming to other streaming services, according to Billboard.

The album completed Ocean’s cut-back commitment to Universal’s Def Jam and was followed two weeks later by the aforementioned and independently released ‘Blonde’, which was also an Apple exclusive initially, although it was subsequently made more widely available.

Rather than appearing in its video form, the album will apparently be made available as audio-only elsewhere, with tracks separated out as you would normally expect. Exactly why it is becoming available now is unclear.



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