Nelly Sued By St. Lunatics Over 2001 Album, Free City

by Cedric ‘BIG CED’ Thornton

September 20, 2024

Ali, Murphy Lee, Kyjuan, and City Spud are suing Nelly after accusing him of cutting them out of the credits and the royalty payments from the album.

After releasing a hit single, Country Grammar, St. Louis native Nelly gathered his friends, formed a group, the St. Lunatics, and recorded music. Now, his former group members are suing him, accusing him of not rightfully compensating them for the work that the group did with him.

According to Billboard, the former group members filed a lawsuit against Cornell Hayes, AKA Nelly, stating that he left them out of proper crediting as well as royalty payments for the album that they did together.

The lawsuit was filed in Manhattan federal court on Sept. 18. The album they are referring to is Free City, which was released a year after the success of Nelly’s hit single, Country Grammar. After being assured by Nelly that they would be properly compensated and credited for their work, it wasn’t an issue at the time. Yet, they felt “manipulated” as the artist had them thinking that they would be paid for the work done on the album.

“Every time plaintiffs confronted defendant Haynes [he] would assure them as ‘friends’ he would never prevent them from receiving the financial success they were entitled to,” the lawsuit reads. “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.”

The members of St. Lunatics were Ali (Ali Jones), Murphy Lee (Tohri Harper), Kyjuan (Robert Kyjuan), and City Spud (Lavell Webb). Although another member, Slo Down (Corey Edwards), was part of the group, he is not named as a plaintiff.

The rappers claim that they were more involved in the writing of songs but weren’t sufficiently credited. That includes Nelly’s first hit, Country Grammar where he and producer Jason Epperson are the only writers listed. They also claimed that during the time of the recording, Nelly “privately and publicly acknowledged that plaintiffs were the lyric writers” and “promised to ensure that plaintiffs received writing and publishing credit.” Yet, over 20 years later, they “discovered that defendant Haynes had been lying to them the entire time.”

After hiring an attorney in 2021 to find out what was really on the books with the Universal Music Publishing Group, they were rebuffed by Nelly’s attorneys, who “expressly repudiated” their claims to credit.

“Plaintiffs had no alternative but to commence legal proceedings against Defendants,” the lawsuit reads.

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