Every album rollout has a budget, and every budget has a person whose job is to say it is too small. In November 2023, according to emails now filed in a New York lawsuit, that person worked for Nicki Minaj.
The $250,000 allowance for the “Pink Friday 2” promotional run, a member of her team wrote, was “extremely low” and could cost at least twice that, Law Commentary reported. The allowance came from Republic Records. The email warned that hotels and transportation alone could use up the whole amount. Three years later, the question in New York State Supreme Court is who should have paid the difference.
The New York case
In March, 24/7 Productions (USA) Inc. sued Pink Friday Productions LLC and Ms. Minaj in New York, seeking $275,149.62 plus interest. The company says it provided advance planning, staffing, audio, lighting, transportation and other production services for her December 2023 appearances at iHeartRadio‘s Jingle Ball shows in Chicago and Atlanta and for a week of “Pink Friday 2” launch events in New York. It says it advanced more than $255,000 in expenses after Ms. Minaj’s team approved the budgets and was never reimbursed. It also alleges that Pink Friday Productions received about $650,000 connected to the Jingle Ball performances while 24/7 went unpaid.
Ms. Minaj’s lawyers dispute both the debt and who owes it. In June, the New York firm Kurzman Eisenberg Corbin & Lever accepted service on her behalf. In July it moved to dismiss the claims against her personally, arguing, as TMZ reported, that any agreement was with Pink Friday Productions, not with her as an individual. Pink Friday Productions, for its part, has said in court filings that the underlying obligations were paid.
Then came the hotel. 24/7’s papers include a bill of more than $103,000 from The Langham, New York, Fifth Avenue. In an August reply, AllHipHop reported, her lawyers accused the company of relying on “sensationalized tropes to depict Minaj as a spoiled and entitled rap star.” They said the multi-room stay was routine, pre-approved tour hospitality for staff and crew, not a personal splurge.
It is a good line, and it works on two levels. The tabloid version asks how anyone runs up six figures at a Fifth Avenue hotel in a week. The legal version asks whether that matters. If the bill was approved, the size of it is just a number. If it was not, the hotel bill is beside the point. What 24/7 needs is a reason to make Ms. Minaj personally answer for her company’s debts.
Friday’s filing
On October 23, Bruce Bieber of Kurzman Eisenberg asked Justice Leslie Stroth for permission to withdraw, according to court papers reported by MIIXTAPECHIICK. He cited differences over litigation strategy and a breakdown in communication. He said he was withholding details to protect privileged communications but could share them with the judge privately. The firm asked the court to pause the case while it considers the request and to give Ms. Minaj and her company 30 days to hire new counsel if the withdrawal is granted. As of that filing, the firm remained counsel of record, and the court had not ruled on the request or on the motion to dismiss her personally.
Lawyers withdraw for many reasons, and the papers do not say which one applies here. What the filing does show is timing: four months after the firm took the case, Ms. Minaj and Pink Friday Productions may soon need new lawyers.
The Los Angeles case
The New York fight has a companion on the other coast, and it is also a fight about a bill. Gordon Rees Scully Mansukhani, the national law firm that says it represented Ms. Minaj in a separate federal copyright lawsuit under an October 2024 agreement, sued her and her company Harajuku Barbie Music LLC in Los Angeles County Superior Court for $229,541.75 in unpaid fees, TMZ reported in July.
Neither defendant answered. After early problems with proof of service, the firm obtained defaults against Harajuku Barbie Music in May and against Ms. Minaj in July. It then asked for a default judgment of $295,605.41, according to MIIXTAPECHIICK. That figure is the original bill plus $25,249.51 in late charges, $37,825 in attorney’s fees and $2,989.15 in costs. A default means the defendant has not responded. It does not mean the court has awarded any money.
The firm has not been paid yet. According to a September report by itsOnlyEntertainment, the court rejected a default-judgment filing on September 8 because the fee contract it relied on had not been signed. That report says the court indicated that the firm would have to prove the reasonable value of its work, a theory known as quantum meruit, and that attorney’s fees would not be available on that basis. Judge Lee S. Arian then continued the matter to November 16. Gordon Rees told the court it would refile its papers.
The lesson for the C-suite of one
Stars of Ms. Minaj’s size are run as companies, and a different entity holds each part of the business: one for publishing, one for production, one for touring. The structure is meant to keep a company’s debts with the company. In New York, a production vendor is testing whether it can reach past Pink Friday Productions to the artist herself. In Los Angeles, a law firm is learning that an unsigned engagement letter can leave a lawyer’s bill uncollectible.
Neither case has been decided. Ms. Minaj, who grew up in Queens and has made the city part of her brand for two decades, has not been found liable for anything in either one. A judge in New York will decide whether to let her lawyers go, and a judge in Los Angeles will take up the default judgment on November 16.
Featured image: Nicki Minaj performing on her Femme Fatale Tour in 2011. Photo by Dyllan via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0.
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