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Quality Control Music boss responds to Migos lawsuit

By | Published on Friday 17 July 2020

Migos

The boss of Quality Control Music, Pierre ‘Pee’ Thomas, has responded to the lawsuit filed this week by the flagship act of his label’s roster, Migos. The rap trio aren’t actually suing Thomas, rather their long-time lawyer Damien Granderson, though a key complaint is his alleged conflict of interest by repping both the group and the label at the same time.

The legal filing made by Migos was pretty forthright. The group had been “robbed” and “cheated” out of millions by their attorney, it said. And Granderson, it went on, was “the personification of a self-absorbed shyster lawyer who saw his clients as a mechanism to get rich by any means necessary, including at his clients’ expense”.

While on the conflict of interest allegation, it said: “With greed on his mind, Granderson saw the trio as easy targets to coax into one-sided deals that benefited Granderson and Granderson’s higher-priority client, Quality Control Music. Unbeknownst to Migos, Granderson’s representation of QCM created an incurable conflict of interest and Granderson’s primary loyalty was QCM, the upstart company that signed Migos to an exclusive recording contract in 2013”.

So, although neither Thomas nor his label are defendants in the case, QCM does not come across as great company in the legal complaint. Which is possibly why Thomas felt the need to respond via a since deleted Instagram post.

He began by noting the unfortunate timing of the lawsuit, coming just days after another QCM artist, Lil Marlo, was shot dead in what police believe was a “targeted attack”.

Thomas wrote: “It is unfortunate that the same people that we have worked hard for, provided opportunities for, and championed for, are now alleging that we have participated in any kind of immoral or unfair business practices or took advantage of them and their careers, especially while we are dealing with the death of an artist on our label that was dear to us”.

Despite how the Migos lawsuit portrays their business relationship with QCM, Thomas insisted: “We have always practiced honest business and complete transparency from the beginning when we started Quality Control Music. We built this business on family values, which has been so hard to do when you are dealing with so much pride and ego”.

Calling the claims now being made against him and his company “nonsense”, he went on: “I will not stand by and let Quality Control Music’s reputation and everything we have built and sacrificed be tarnished by allegations of unfair and unjust business practices”.

“I am a student of this game and I have watched several black record label owners get destroyed by the same things that I am facing right now”, he continued. “This is why [the] majority of the people in this business end up in financial turmoil and ultimately failing to reach their full potential. It is hard enough to be fighting and battling with corporations and the powers that be, I am not doing it with those who I consider family”

He concluded: “I love my artists and I love my team. Everyone has their own lawyers. I understand in this business that you are not always going to end with the people you started with. I say that to say, I am not forcing anybody to be in business with us that has a problem and cannot communicate and does not want to work as a unit. Everything is negotiable. I wish my whole team more money, more blessings and continued success”.

We still await a response from Granderson, the actual defendant in the Migos lawsuit.



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