Kanye West sued for USD 7 million over unpaid event production fees

Los Angeles-based production and design firm Phantom Labs has filed a lawsuit against rapper Kanye West.

According to Variety, the lawsuit, which was filed on 14 July in Los Angeles County’s Superior Court, alleged that West and his team owe Phantom Labs USD 7 million for work the firm contributed to West’s canceled Coachella set, his Free Larry Hoover concert with Drake, a Donda 2 listening event, and multiple Sunday Service performances.

The firm, Phantom Labs, alleged that, as the unpaid bills began piling up from multiple projects, it was assured that everything would be paid up once the star collected a reported USD 9 million fee for appearing at Coachella. Once West pulled out of that headlining appearance with weeks to spare, the company says it was on the hook not just for the millions already owed for past collaborations but money it had paid other vendors for the scotched festival appearance.

“We are incredibly proud of the work that we did with Ye and are disappointed that such a fruitful relationship has come to this. A celebrity weaponizing fame and reputation to take advantage of eager collaborators is simply unacceptable,” a spokesperson for Phantom Labs said in a statement.

The suit alleged that the USD 7,154,177.67 owed accrued over a fairly short amount of time, from June 2021, when Phantom Labs first began working on producing events with West, until March 2022. 

The papers acknowledge that the company was paid for some of its early work, but indicate that those payments arrived only under pressure, when the firm threatened to pull out of the “Donda 2” streaming event as its own vendors warned they would quit the production unless paid by Phantom Labs.