Months after Rita Ora filed a lawsuit against Jay Z’s label Roc Nation for neglecting her music, the company has filed a $2.3 million counter suit.
Rita Ora was supposed to release five albums with Roc Nation after signing to them in 2008. We’ve only gotten one. In a lawsuit filed in December, Ora accused the label of putting her music on the back burner to instead focus on its growing sports clientele.
In return, Roc Nation is now counter suing to recoup the $2.3 million they claim to have poured into marketing for Ora’s still unreleased sophomore album.
TMZ reports (emphasis mine):
The label claims it signed Rita in 2008 when she was unknown and invested millions in her career. In return she had to deliver 5 albums, but the label says it only got one.
Strange. In the meantime, Ora has dropped popular, practically inescapable, so-good singles such as “Poison” and “Body on Me.”
According to Ora’s initial complaint (which describes her as “orphaned”), Jay Z’s streaming service TIDAL also seems to be a distraction:
…The lawsuit paints Roc Nation as a “diminished” record label with “only a handful of admittedly worthy heritage superstar artists.”
Ora (now living in California) says she’s on her own, “self-funding her promotional television appearances, recording costs and video projects”…
When briefed about the lawsuit, Jay Z reportedly said, “Ok,” and then paused for a moment, adding, “Can you remind me who we’re talking about again?”
Just kidding. Jay Z is allegedly willing to release Ora from the label, according to her attorney Howard King. So there’s a chance these lawsuits will disappear from whence they came.
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