Jay Z may have just beat one lawsuit, but it looks as though he already has another to contend with.
According to reports, singer and actress Rita Ora has filed suit against the mogul’s Roc Nation record label and seeks to be let go from her contract. The lawsuit reportedly claims Ora’s contract, which she signed at 18, violates California law, and that Roc Nation has neglected her as an artist while it focused on other divisions of the company such as it’s sports management venture and even Jay Z’s music streaming service, Tidal.
“When Rita signed, Roc Nation and its senior executives were very involved with her as an artist,” the suit proclaims. “As Roc Nation’s interests diversified, there were fewer resources available and the company suffered a revolving door of executives. Rita’s remaining supporters at the label left or moved on to other activities, to the point where she no longer had a relationship with anyone at the company.”
Ora goes on to claim in the suit that Roc Nation’s distribution switch from Sony to Universal has proven to be detrimental to her career and that the label is more or less now “diminished” with “only a handful of admittedly worthy heritage superstar artists.”
The 25-year-old “Body On Me” singer hopes to use California’s “seven year rule” law which lets artists end most contracts after that length of time. Unfortunately for Ora, usually when that law is enacted to break a contract the record company is able to countersue for “lost profits” depending on how close the artist was to fulfilling their album output agreement.
In Ora’s case, she has only released one album, 2012’s Ora, despite her contract calling for five.
Since launching in 2008 and signing a number of acts including J. Cole, Jay Electronica, Rihanna, Vic Mensa, and Willow Smith, only Cole and label president Jay Z have released more than one album through the label.
Meanwhile, Ora is no longer listed on the Roc Nation website amongst its other artists.
