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“I like you already.”
At her invitation, Jack took a seat beside her on a pedestal-style barstool. Theo stood behind the bar, his go-to spot, having tended his own bar at Cy’s Place for years.
“I’m being sued by my ex-husband,” she said. “He made me sign a nondisclosure and nondisparagement agreement when I was really young, before we got married. It was in the prenup, so it became part of the final order of divorce when we split.”
“I’m sure Theo has told you I don’t do domestic relations law.”
“It’s not that kind of case. Theo said you defended a couple of rappers on racketeering charges. It’s more like that.”
Prosecutors were increasingly using song lyrics as evidence of gang membership to convict rappers of criminal racketeering. Occasionally, the target was a big name, like Jeffrey Williams, aka Young Thug, the alleged founder of the vicious Atlanta street gang YSL, aka Young Slime Life. Jack’s case was more typical—a pair of no-name rappers from Liberty City who followed the old adage “write what you know,” which prosecutors then used as road maps for indictments.
“That was a criminal case,” said Jack. “Which is mostly what I do.”
“It involved the First Amendment, and so does mine,” said Imani. “My ex says I breached the nondisparagement agreement by saying bad things about him after the divorce. It’s really a defamation case based on things that happened in the last month or so.”
Theo poured a round of tequila—force of habit. “It would probably help if you told Jack who your ex is,” said Theo.
“Shaky Nichols,” she said.
Nichols was closer in age to Jack than Imani, so finally there was someone Jack had heard of. “The music mogul?”
“The musician killer,” said Imani.
Jack sensed whence the defamation claims had sprung. “What do you mean by that?”
“In the music industry, the big money doesn’t necessarily flow to the artist. It goes to whoever owns the rights to the artist’s master recordings. When I signed my first recording contract, I was like every other emerging artist—powerless. That means I had no ownership rights to the master recordings of any of my early hits. Those rights belonged to my first record label. After I made it big, I tried to buy them.”
“Was the label willing to sell?”
“Yeah. Until another buyer came along.”
“Let me guess: Shaky.”
“Yes! So, not only did I get nothing in the divorce, thanks to the prenup, but now my ex owns my master recordings and collects royalties onmysongs that launchedmycareer. I get the same peanuts I got under my contract with my first record label, back when I was a nobody. Shaky is a fucking scumbag thief.”
Imani didn’t mince words. Jack could only imagine the Tweets that had triggered the defamation lawsuit.
“Didn’t Taylor Swift have a similar problem?” asked Theo.
“Yeah,” she said. “Scooter Braun owned the master recordings of every song before herLoveralbum. That’s why she re-recorded every one of her old albums and created ‘Taylor’s version.’ Scooter Braun gets nothing from Taylor’s version.”
“Have you thought about re-recording yours—‘Imani’s version’?” asked Jack.
“I don’t have that kind of time.”
Jack arched an eyebrow. “And Taylor Swift does?”
“Taylor did it during Covid when no one was touring. If she had to do it now, she couldn’t. I’m in the same boat, recording new material, touring, or doing private gigs like the Garcia party.”
“Do you do a lot of these private parties?” Jack asked.
“As many as I can. It’s the easiest money in the business. If you’re Bruno Mars, you can get four million for a forty-minute gig at a wedding. But you have to be careful. J.Lo caught shit for going all the way to Turkmenistan to sing ‘Happy Birthday’ to one of the most repressive dictators in central Asia. Oops. Big apology followed, but I’m pretty sure she kept the money, honey.”
“I’m sure,” said Theo.
“Getting back to the lawsuit,” said Jack. “I heard you shout something to the crowd at the end of tonight’s performance that left me scratching my head. You said, ‘If you want my early stuff—’”
“Go pirate!” she said, finishing for him. “I deliver that message every chance I get. I literally call it my ‘go pirate’ campaign.”
