NinaWorldNews had earlier reported about the lawsuit filed against Nelly from his former bandmates over Decades – Old Album – ‘Deceived Us All Along.’ But now, three of the four members who filed the lawsuit against rapper Nelly have now stated that a lawyer acted without their consent, and they hold no grievances against their childhood friend.
Weeks after Nelly’s former groupmates in the St. Lunatics sued him for allegedly excluding them from royalties for his hit album Country Grammar, Murphy Lee (Tohri Harper), Kyjuan (Robert Kyjuan), and City Spud (Lavell Webb) have asserted that they did not wish to be included in the lawsuit and requested their immediate removal.
In a letter sent last month, Nelly’s attorney notified the lawyer who filed the suit that the three ex-bandmates had recently hired his services and had informed him they did not authorize their inclusion as plaintiffs. “They are hereby demanding you remove their names forthwith,” wrote N. Scott Rosenblum in the September 24 letter obtained by Billboard. He warned that failure to comply would lead them to pursue all available legal options.
This development comes just weeks after Harper, Kyjuan, and Webb initially joined fellow St. Lunatics member Ali (Ali Jones) in filing the lawsuit against Nelly (Cornell Haynes).
However, their decision to withdraw aligns with Nelly’s recent performance at the American Music Awards on October 6, where the three joined him on stage and seemed to be on amicable terms.
With Harper, Kyjuan, and Webb retracting their claims, the lawsuit now essentially involves a dispute solely between Nelly and Ali. Ali’s attorney, Gail M. Walton, did not respond immediately for comment.
The St. Lunatics, a group of high school friends from St. Louis, gained fame in the late 1990s with the song “Gimme What U Got.” Their debut album Free City, released a year after Country Grammar, also achieved commercial success, reaching No. 3 on the Billboard 200.
In their September 18 complaint, the bandmates accused Nelly of repeatedly deceiving them into believing they would be compensated for their contributions to the 2000 album, which spent five weeks at the top of the Billboard 200. They alleged that he failed to fulfill those promises.
“Every time plaintiffs confronted defendant Haynes, he would assure them as ‘friends’ that he would never prevent them from achieving the financial success they deserved,” the lawsuit states. The plaintiffs believed their friend and former band member would not take credit for writing the original songs and initially refrained from pursuing legal action.
The lawsuit claimed that during and after the recording of Country Grammar, Nelly “privately and publicly acknowledged” that the plaintiffs were the lyricists and “promised to ensure that they received writing and publishing credit.” However, decades later, in 2020, the St. Lunatics “discovered that defendant Haynes had been lying to them the entire time.”
“Despite repeatedly promising plaintiffs that they would receive full recognition and credit, it eventually became clear that defendant Haynes had no intention of providing the plaintiffs with any such credit or recognition,” the lawsuit asserted.
