Ashanti is fighting back at the music producer who the courts forced her to pay $630,000 last year. As previously reported, Genard Parker last year accused the R&B star of breaking a contract she had entered into early on in her career giving the producer rights to work on her early albums. Ashanti denied ever making such an agreement, but the courts sided with Parker and made the compensation award.
Now Ashanti is suing Parker over an album he allegedly released last year which included early Ashanti demo recordings. The singer claims those recordings were made in a bid to win a label deal at the start of her career, and that they were never intended for release. She also says Parker and his partners misrepresented her on the album by including recent photos of her on the artwork, and implying the whole album was her work when she only provided backing vocals on two of the tracks, and she was not involved at all on another track. Ashanti's lawsuit accuses Parker and other companies involved in the release of invasion of privacy, unfair competition and trademark violations. She wants the court to force sales of the album to cease, while seeking damages in excess of $1 million (though, perhaps she'd make do with $630,000?).
Confirming the action, Ashanti's lawyer William Archer told reporters: "It has long been a sad fact of the music industry that there are a great many people who try to make easy money off of the talent, hard work and success of young recording artists. Recording artists are starting to fight back in different ways. That is what we intend to do here."
Parker is yet to comment on the lawsuit.