News: The Rza Appeals Royalties Lawsuit Filed By Ghostface

Yesterday The Rza made some comments to AllHipHop.com regarding the on going lawsuit that was filed against him by fellow clansmen Ghostface Killah back in 2005 that calls into dispute the fact that he [Rza] gets a 50% share on all the group's royalties.

Yikes....

To many, myself included, the lawsuit had flown a bit under the radar. I mean after all, the Clan had been putting out albums and working with one another since, so I guess this is one of those "no hard feelings, it's just business" lawsuits. There was some definite grumblings that surfaced publicly between the Wu's fourth and fifth albums "Iron Flag" and "8 Diagrams", but evidently the two men were still able to work on projects together.

One stark reality that really did kinda stick out to me though: Rza gets 50 freakin' percent of all the royalties on Wu projects! That's kinda sideways, and I don't blame Ghost for taking it there and wanting everyone's royalties to be the same. The case seems pretty one sided and last week it was rumored that Ghost in fact did win the motion against Bobby Digital. However the man that formed the Wu remains defiant and maintains that he's gonna fight the lawsuit and that some foul folks have gotten all up in Ghostdini's ear:

The case between Ghost and RZA is not closed yet. The judgment has not been entered yet, and we are appealing the case. I'm not appealing because I don't want to pay Ghost something that I owe him. Anything I owe him I would give him ... But he's with a group of people who to me have a misunderstanding of hip-hop and contracts.

Now I guess what the Zig Zag Ziggallah's ace in the hole for his appeal is that according to him, that outrageous figure of 50% is very commonplace in the world of Hip-Hop:

If I wasn't the producer and it was just a contract thing, maybe I'd feel more compassion. But trust me, when it comes to doing these records, I'm in the studio hundreds of days where they're here for 20-30 days," RZA explains. "The beats are made on my own time then brought to the studio, tracked down with me and the engineer, and then you're brought in to do your 16 bars. Songs like Bring Da Ruckus, I made two years before they even rapped on it. Songs like Can It Be So Simple, anybody could have got on that. It had the hook, beat, and the lift from the beginning. They threw their verses on it ... They've made millions based on my beats

Riiiiiighhhhht....Sorry Rza, on this one you might just have to fork over the reported $158,000 judgement to Ghost and hope and pray that none of the other clansmen come asking for their ends either. It's sad to see someone as dope and as brilliant as Rza going through this, but what would be worse would be to see Rza get sued by the other seven members.

I think the lesson here is that when you get into business with ya brothers from another you gotta treat em' as such. I know he's given them all a chance to be up in the game and be famous an all that, but what's fair is fair....Most of those beats were indeed monumental, but without the lyrics to make them songs, they were just beats. Just do what's right Mr. Diggs, just do what's right...

-BIG D O