Days after Shaboozey sued both Warner Chappell and his former label, the label immediately sued him — accusing the country star of using “fraud” and “bad faith” to avoid his existing contractual obligations in the wake of the huge hit “A Bar Song (Tipsy).”
In a complaint filed Friday (August 23) in Los Angeles court, Kreshendo Entertainment claims that after Shaboozey (Collins Obinna Chibueze) was released from his record deal in 2019, the company retained the basic rights to his music. Instead of sticking to those demands, Kreshendo alleges that the star has “opted for a strategy of fraud and misrepresentation to deprive the plaintiffs of their contractual rights.”
“Notably, Shaboozey has had no problem with any of these terms for years,” wrote the company's lawyers, from the law firm Reed Smith. “It was only after he recently released 'Bar Song,' which became a huge hit, that he suddenly took issue with the terms he had expressly agreed to.”
The new case was filed just two days after Shaboozey filed his own on Wednesday (August 21) against Kreshendo and Warner Chappell. In that lawsuit, Shaboozey alleged that Warner was preventing him from exiting a publishing deal and that he was doing so at Kreshendo's behest, even though he had denounced the company years earlier.
But in the new charges, Kreshendo says Shaboozey is the one at fault. The label admitted it had released Shaboozey from his record deal in 2019, but argued the move came with significant conditions — namely that Kreshendo would continue to own 50% of all the singer's compositions and retain the right to be paid a percentage of profits from his bosses.
These demands were put in place, according to Kreshendo, to compensate the label for supporting a then-undiscovered singer.
“Before Shaboozey became the well-known artist he is today, he was an unknown artist in whom plaintiffs believed and agreed to invest their time and money to help him develop and succeed in the music industry,” the complaint states.
The lawsuit alleges that Shaboozey has repeatedly violated the termination agreement, including by failing to pay required earnings and also through the dispute with Warner detailed in his own lawsuit earlier in the week. Kreshendo says Shaboozey's statements to Warner, including telling the company to stop paying Kreshendo, were “false” and “an attempt to circumvent his contractual obligations.”
An attorney for Shaboozey did not immediately return a request for comment Bulletin board on Monday (August 26). Warner Chappell, which was named as a defendant in Shaboozey's case, is not a plaintiff in the newest lawsuit.
The dueling lawsuits come amid a breakout year for Shaboozey. “A Bar Song,” a genre-blending hit that interpolates J-KWON's 2004 rap hit “Tipsy” into a bouncy pop country track, spent seven weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, marking the chart's longest for a song in 2024.
