Kanye West has filed new documents in his case against EMI and Roc-A-Fella. West's latest gambit to be free from his contract with the labels claims that his EMI contract is illegal under California law.
West's docs claim that his contract with EMI has no time limit, which is illegal in California, where any contract longer than seven years amounts to servitude. According to TMZ, West wants the contract tossed so that he can "be set free from its bonds."
The deal was structured around a set amount of songs and not a year limit. Because that structure can expand the contract as long as it takes to get to that limit, 'Ye wants the contract invalidated. Kanye marks 2010 as the end of his deal with EMI, as that was seven years after the deal was signed.
Kanye claimed that he attempted to buy out his contract late last year and was denied. He called out Sony's soon-to-be and current CEOs in a post shared to social media.
"I got the money. So, big Jon, Marty, whoever is involved, I need my publishing. I got the money," Kanye said. "I'm not gonna say the S-word (referring to 'slave'). I'm not Prince; I don't need to write it on my face."
Even if Kanye isn't saying slave, he's definitely hinting at it in his latest filing. Both the claims of illegal servitude and the language asking to be freed from bondage carry connotations related to slavery.
Reports recently circulated that the contract dispute was what was holding up Yandhi, with Kanye allegedly witholding the album until he could be free of his contract. However, Kanye's team vehemently denied that 'Ye is holding on to the promised album as a bargaining chip.
"The Blast article has the unredacted complaint but it’s not a new lawsuit. It’s the unredacted version of the previous filing. Also there’s another inaccurate portion about him holding up the ninth album. That’s not in the complaint and untrue," Kanye reps said in a statement to XXL.
