Nelly is officially off the hook in the $50 million lawsuit filed by Ali on behalf of the St. Lunatics.
The St. Louis native was accused of allegedly withholding royalties over contributions the group made to his blockbuster album Country Grammar. However, three members of the group — Murphy Lee, Kyjuan and City Spud — claimed they did not consent to the lawsuit and pulled out shortly after it was filed last year.
Now according to Billboard, Ali moved to drop the lawsuit on Thursday (April 10). There is no word on whether a settlement was reached, however.
And while this is a good thing for Nelly, his legal team is actually asking the judge not to fully dismiss the case yet because they are looking to go after Ali for the “frivolous” lawsuit.
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“Plaintiff’s counsel succeeded in its frivolous campaign aimed at forcing [Nelly] to spend money defending Plaintiff’s ridiculous time-barred claim. The Court is respectfully requested to retain jurisdiction and set a briefing and hearing schedule for [potential sanctions],” they wrote.
In the original complaint, St. Lunatics alleged that Nelly had “manipulated” the group into believing that they had been paid for their work on his diamond-certified debut album, but that was not the case.
The suit read: “Every time plaintiffs confronted defendant Haynes [Nelly], [he] would assure them as ‘friends’ he would never prevent them from receiving the financial success they were entitled to.
“Unfortunately, plaintiffs, reasonably believing that their friend and former band member would never steal credit for writing the original compositions, did not initially pursue any legal remedies.”
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Shortly afterwards, St. Lunatics — with the exception of Ali — joined Nelly on stage at the 2024 American Music Awards before the trio subsequently demanded they be removed from the lawsuit.
In 2023, Ali vowed he’d never perform with Nelly ever again because of money he allegedly owed the group.
“I’ll say like it could be $90,000 or $70,000,” he estimated of the money he was owed in an interview with VladTV. “When that conversation happens, I’ll get a check. It’ll be $13,000. Now you’ll be fucked up because what is this $13,000 for? You owe me $91,000.”
He added: “What did you pay me for? At the end of it, it’s gonna be $66,000 because he’s far behind on the payments.”
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The suit appears to have been ignited by Nelly selling his catalog to HarbourView Equity Partners for $50 million in 2023.
