DaBaby’s record label Billion Dollar Baby Entertainment has been accused of mistreating and under-paying performers who appear in its music videos.
A lawsuit filed by one of those performers, Rebekka Lien, says that during a video shoot for DaBaby track ‘Couple Cubes Of Ice’ she was “disparaged, ridiculed and required to work additional hours without compensation”.
Breaks, including bathroom breaks, were dictated by DaBaby’s staff, she alleges, and when she called family members to let them know the shoot was overrunning she was criticised, had her phone confiscated and was told to “pull her big girl pants up”.
Lien’s lawsuit seeks class action status, meaning it could end up seeking damages for more than 500 people who have worked with the label on video content, including dancers, models, actors and what it calls ‘background talent’.
Lien was contracted in September 2021 to appear in the video and says she was offered $150 in cash for an eight hour shoot, with lunch provided. However, in the end she was required to work for more than eleven hours, she claims, but was still only paid $150, and no additional catering was made available.
The lawsuit states, “Disparaged, ridiculed and required to work additional hours without compensation, Ms Lien nonetheless decided to continue with the production in hopes to be paid something for her time”.
Core to the legal claim is the allegation that the rapper’s label incorrectly classified Lien, and other performers, as independent contractors in order to pay them less than the minimum wage. The lawsuit, attorney Chantal McCoy Payton tells Law360, “shines a light on a troubling trend in the entertainment industry - misclassifying non-union actors, dancers, models and other background talent as independent contractors”.
Lien’s lawyers argue that, because of the way the shoot was managed, their client should have been classified as an employee and paid minimum wage, which - in 2021, under “LA city and county minimum wage ordinances” - was $15 an hour or $22.50 an hour for overtime. Instead she got $150 for more than eleven hours work, which equates to less than $13.63 per hour.
The lawsuit states, “defendants wilfully misclassified these employees as independent contractors despite defendants exercising substantial and excessive control over the manner, means and timing of the work performed by class members. These individuals were in reality employees that were entitled to protections under California law”.
Lien asks the court to rule that DaBaby’s company wrongly classified its employees as contractors, and therefore breached the California Labor Code, including rules relating to minimum wages and working conditions.. It wants the rapper’s business to pay all class members what they would be due under minimum wage rules as well as restitution.
DaBaby has not yet commented on the lawsuit. Maybe he will comment via a diss track, which is seemingly how he responded to another lawsuit filed against him relating to an alleged 2022 altercation between the rapper and the brother of his ex-girlfriend DaniLeigh.