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Judge dismisses lawsuit over Roc-A-Fella logo
By Chris Cooke | Published on Wednesday 28 September 2016
A US judge has dismissed a lawsuit against Jay-Z and his former business partners over the origins of the logo for the hip hop mogul’s original label venture Roc-A-Fella.
According to Reuters, a clothing designer called Dwayne Walker sued Jay-Z and his Roc-A-Fella co-founder Damon Dash, plus the label’s parent company Universal Music, in 2012. He claimed that he created the artwork that formed the basis of the Roc-A-Fella logo, and that he signed a contract with Dash back in the 1990s that entitled him to royalties for the record company’s use of the artwork.
The defendants denied Walker’s claims, arguing that the label’s logo had, in fact, been designed by the company’s then in-house art director. While two other people claimed to have seen the lost contract signed by Dash in relation to the artwork, judge Andrew Carter said those testimonies were weak, leaving “only plaintiff’s own self-serving testimony that he drafted the contract, that he and Dash signed it, and that he lost track of it in 1998”.
Walker’s legal reps still reckon that their client has a case strong enough to go to a full court hearing, and therefore they plan to appeal Carter’s decision. Said lawyer Gregory Berry to Reuters: “Walker made the logo in 1995. Then in 2013, in response to this suit – never before – the defendants find a guy who is willing to claim now that HE made the logo … Sound like a factual question for trial? We agree”.
