The late MF Doom's wife, Jasmine Dumile Thompson, has filed a lawsuit against his former label collaborator, Eothen "Egon" Alapatt, for stealing 31 of the rapper's notebooks that included many of the rapper's songs.
The lawsuit was filed on Tuesday in a California federal court. Thompson had accused Alapatt of stealing the notebooks months before she presented her case. In March, Doom's widow took to Instagram with a post showing an e-mail conversation between the rapper and Alapatt with the caption, "Egon Give the Notebooks Back."
Tracks from several of Doom's albums, including Operation Doomsday (1999), Madvillainy (2004), MM…FOOD (2004), unreleased songs, ideas, and more were in the notebooks.
According to the lawsuit, Alapatt has admitted to being in possession of the notebooks, but Doom's estate claimed he won't return them. Alapatt is allegedly demanding that the notebooks be "donated to a university or government archive" or a "museum or other institution of [Alapatt's] choosing." However, the estate is pushing back as that's not what DOOM would've wanted.
"[The notebooks] were intended by Doom to be secret and confidential," the lawsuit reads.
The situation between these two goes as far back as 2010, when Doom went to the U.K. to perform a show but couldn't return home due to immigration issues. While he was away, the notebooks were left behind in his studio in Los Angeles, where Alapatt got a hold of them approximately six years later. Doom stayed in the U.K. up until he passed away on October 31, 2020.
"Alapatt never consulted with DOOM about his acquisition of the notebooks and took advantage of DOOM's being out the country to obtain them," the lawsuit said. Doom initially confronted Alapatt, but he lied about having the notebooks. The landlord of the studio allegedly told Doom that Alapatt did, in fact, have the notebooks, which led to the rapper confronting him again.
Alapatt then told Doom he obtained the notebooks over a $12,500 past-due rent bill he covered for the rapper. Things got even more awkward in Summer 2020 when Alapatt offered Doom and his family copies of the notebooks but not the actual physical copies. Then, in October 2020, Doom's estate claimed Alapatt sent a hard drive containing the notebooks to the rapper.
However, this isn't enough as Thompson is determined to get the notebooks back, the photo copies destroyed, and "significant compensation" for the damage Alapatt has caused.
