Talib Kweli is a Deadbeat, Says Guy
Did Brooklyn hip hop star Talib Kweli, former partner to Mos Def, stiff some dude out of $1,200 for services rendered—because of the internet? Yes, according to that dude's shocking claims:
Through our vast web of high-level connections in the music and entertainment industries, we came across this complaint from a guy who works at Brooklyn's Relief Records, who says, in this never-before-published tale, that Kweli and others are not paying him money for recording their show more than a year ago—possibly because the website they wanted to put the recording on didn't pan out. If you can't trust a verbal contract in the music industry, what can you trust? Full allegations of hip hop celebrity financial shenanigans below:
"the 11/6/07 show at the apollo was a vip "blacksmith management" event featuring Talib Kweli and Jean Grae. I was hired to bring my whole recording rig up there (desktop tower, pre amps, monitor etc) to record the show for the purpose of using my audio and video they put together of the show for their fledgling "Blacksmith TV" project. I repeatedly sent them invoices which they kept saying they could not open (ms word files? come on) so when i got them paper copies of the invoice the story was the check was in the mail. One year ago. They stopped taking or returning my calls about six months ago when they said the Blacksmith tv project had not gotten off the ground. They had no real use for the recording i had done for them........ but maybe they could find some other work for me sometime. fer reels? wow thanks! there was no contingency plan in the deal that i may or may not get paid for my work depending on what they did with the recording. i still send them invoices which they ignore (is talib kweli's management so broke they cant make good on a $1200.00 invoice?). Now i dont get past the secretary when i call where as before the owner corey smyth's right hand lady Midori used to take the phone for him and feed me his BS for him. see blacksmithnyc.com"