In this week’s Legal Beat newsletter, Snoop settles with a session musician, Diddy nears the end of his sex trafficking trial, Jay-Z loses a key round in his extortion lawsuit and much more.
THE BIG STORY: Snoop Dogg reached a confidential settlement with Trevor Lawrence Jr., a veteran studio musician who has been credited on songs by Bruno Mars, Alicia Keys, Ed Sheeran, Kendrick Lamar and other top artists. Snoop and Lawrence were locked in litigation for close to a year over two backing tracks on the 2022 album BODR.
Lawrence claimed Snoop did not properly license his backing tracks before using them on the BODR songs “Pop Pop” and “Get This D–k,” and that the legendary rapper made matters worse by also releasing both songs as NFTs (non-fungible tokens) without his permission.
Snoop, meanwhile, said he had a deal with Lawrence and paid the producer $20,000 before releasing BODR. The rapper’s lawyers criticized Lawrence in court papers for seeking a “preposterous windfall” of millions of dollars through the litigation.
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Snoop and Lawrence’s settlement, reached with the help of a mediator, allows the two men to avoid a costly trial that was scheduled to begin in September. But, even without going to trial, the lawsuit provided a glimpse at industry practices surrounding the use of backing tracks.
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Lawrence alleged in his legal complaint that he often creates these instrumentals “on spec” and shops them around to prominent artists. Lawrence said he allows artists to “experiment” with the tracks in the studio for free, as he did in this case with Snoop Dogg, but that he expects a license to be negotiated before a song is commercially released.
