Chance the Rapper has filed a lawsuit against his former manager Pat Corcoran, accusing Pat of exploiting Chance’s stature, damaging his reputation, and demanding kickbacks.
The Chicago Tribune reports Chance filed the lawsuit last week in Cook County court, and came at the same time he responded to Corcoran’s breach of contract lawsuit, which was filed in December over an alleged $3 million in unpaid commissions. Chance is seeking to dismiss multiple counts of the original lawsuit, and is now seeking over $1 million for each of the three counts in his lawsuit.
“Mr. Corcoran has been paid in full under his management services contract with Mr. Bennett. Yet he chose to file a groundless and insulting lawsuit that ignores his own improper self-dealing and incompetence," said Chance's lawyers in a statement. "Mr. Bennett has moved to dismiss the majority of that meritless lawsuit, and filed his own lawsuit to remedy the harm that Mr. Corcoran caused through his breaches of duty. Mr. Bennett trusts the legal system to reveal the truth of the parties’ relationship in due course."
Chance called Corcoran a “marginally competent business manager” who was also a “bullying and abrasive self-promoter,” disputing the claims in Corcoran’s suit in which he said Chance failed to take his advice resulting in the disappointing critical and commercial reception to his The Big Day album. The rapper says Corcoran was a “hanger-on at the fringes of the rap music scene in Chicago,” and their relationship soured after he “effectively sabotaged” a deal that would have seen Chance become the “face” of UnitedMasters.
Chance has alleged that Corcoran “sought to extort kickbacks from merchandise vendors by threatening that Mr. Bennett’s businesses would not hire the vendor unless the vendor gave Mr. Corcoran an equity interest in the vendor or made a payment to Mr. Corcoran or one of his businesses." Among the examples given were an instance in which Pat “demanded that he receive an equity interest in the Ramova Theater” after Chance was offered equity interest for the theater’s redevelopment project. He also supposedly utilized a Chance the Rapper tour to get Live Nation to buy wine from his company No Fine Print.
"Rather than confront the substance of Pat the Manager’s claims, the defendants have elected to attack Mr. Corcoran’s character and rewrite history," said Corcoran's attorneys in a statement. "The aspersions cast by the Chance camp are offensive and do not reflect the reality of the relationship that Mr. Corcoran and Mr. Bennett developed over many years of collaboration. The results of the pair’s fruitful teamwork—and the contrasting results when Mr. Corcoran was sidelined—are evident to the public."
Chance the Rapper and Corcoran stopped working together in April 2020.
