Mass Appeal, the hip-hop multimedia and record company co-founded by Nas and CEO Peter Bittenbender, has been slammed with a discrimination lawsuit.
The lawsuit was filed Oct. 17 in Manhattan federal court by Melissa Cooper, a white documentary producer who alleged she was the target of a “racist conspiracy” fueled by Jenya Meggs, Mass Appeal’s Black Senior VP for Partnerships & Content Acquisition.
Shortly before she was allegedly fired from Mass Appeal in June, Cooper — who was the head of development at the company— claimed that she was the victim of “venomous and racist” comments made by Meggs and her close constituents. She accused the executive and other employees at the company of making remarks about “white folk and crackers.”
Cooper also alleged that the Black senior VP “bragged” about how she made her “shed white tears” during her time at the company.
Meggs and Bittenbender are both listed as defendants in the suit.
Nas is not listed as a defendant, but he is named as “one of the famous owners” of the global hip-hop company.
Initially, Mass Appeal was launched as a magazine in 1996. Still, in 2013, Nas – real name Nasir bin Olu Dara Jones — became an investor in the company, helping to revamp the publication into a multimedia platform.
In the suit, Cooper alleged that Meggs and Bittenbender, who is white – “discriminated against her by removing her from several high-value projects, creating a hostile work environment, and terminating her employment.”
One of the projects was allegedly Mass Appeal’s Hip Hop 50 Live concert at Yankee Stadium held in August.
Inside the complaint, the documentarian, who has worked on developing and selling Black media content over the last 15 years, claimed she was “stripped” of her “primary role at Mass Appeal” after she was ousted from the big event.
Cooper alleged that she became the target of Meggs’ racial vitriol when she was brought in to develop Freaknik: The Wildest Party Never Told — a documentary that details the rise and fall of Atlanta’s legendary HBCU picnic that grew into a massive street party in the early ‘90s.
According to text messages allegedly obtained by Cooper legal’s team, Meggs was “upset” that Alex Avant — an executive producer behind the documentary — tapped Cooper to develop and pitch the project to Hulu in 2022.
The message allegedly captured Meggs texting with Terry Ross, a Black executive producer behind Freaknik, about Cooper.
After she expressed her frustration, Ross allegedly “responded with surprise and said that this was ‘terrible.’ Meggs then texted that there were no hard feelings before qualifying Cooper’s selection for the Freaknik project as ‘Usual white folk behavior.’”
Later on in the message, Meggs complained about Bittenbender’s decision not to hire a candidate she referred for a role at Mass Appeal. Ross allegedly replied, “These white folk something else.”
Further along in the suit, Cooper also alleged that Meggs “pushed” Mass Appeal to hire her close friend for a position within the human resources department. That friend later acted as an “unbiased mediator” when the documentarian and Meggs got into arguments about company projects.
Cooper was terminated from her position on June 30. She joined Mass Appeal in 2021. The former employee is “seeking declaratory and injunctive relief, reinstatement, and monetary damages.”
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