Legal issues had been simmering between Flavor Flav and his fellow Public Enemy bandmates for years, when Flavor Flav sued Chuck D and the group’s business management firm in 2017 over unpaid profits. “This action involves the usurpation of money and property rights from Plaintiff William J. Drayton, known as ‘Flavor Flav,’” the suit stated. “Despite Drayton’s position in Public Enemy, the group’s management and related companies have for years attempted to minimize his role in the Public Enemy business, while continuing to rely upon Drayton’s fame and persona to market the brand.”

In the lawsuit, Flavor Flav claimed that he and Chuck D had a long-established agreement that profits from their music, merchandise and concerts would be split between them. Despite that alleged arrangement, Flavor Flav claimed that Public Enemy’s business management firm Eastlink had not been sending the earnings he is owed, which have “diminished to almost nothing, and Drayton has been refused accountings, even on the items bearing his likeness,” according to the lawsuit.

“Flav will be OK. TMZ Drama is beneath me considering our age,” Chuck D tweeted at the time, blaming Flavor Flav’s “new management” for the lawsuit. “It’s low entertainment, but I definitely like to find those 50 songs he wrote.”

Per court records, the suit against Chuck D was dismissed in January 2019. A judge dismissed Flavor Flav’s case against Eastlink in April 2019 after the rapper’s legal team missed a filing deadline, though the hypeman appealed the judgment. (The case is currently working its way through the United States Court of Appeals – Ninth Circuit, per court records.)

Public Enemy’s statement added that Public Enemy Radio would release a new album in April; last December, Chuck D’s previous project Prophets of Rage dissolved following news of Rage Against the Machine’s reunion.


Image Source:*Mark Allan/Invision/AP/Shutterstock

Source:rollingstone.com