MF DOOM’s widow and estate sue former Stones Throw label manager for return of personal notebooks

MF DOOM’s widow and estate are suing former Stones Throw label manager and A&R, Egon Alapatt, accusing him of improperly purchasing 31 of the late artist’s notebooks.

Alapatt is being sued over copyright infringement, fraud, intentional misrepresentation and unjust enrichment.

DOOM’s wife, Jasmine Dumile Thompson, and the late rapper's Gas Drawls brand, now managed by his estate, claim they hold the rights to the notebooks.

Earlier this year, Thompson shared screenshots of emails between DOOM and Alapattto to DOOM’s Instagram page, requesting “Egon [to] Give The Notebooks Back.”

According to Billboard, Egon has admitted to possessing the notebooks, however, he refuses to return them.

The notebooks contain lyrics from albums ‘Operation Doomsday’, ‘Madvillainy’ and ‘MM…FOOD’, as well as unreleased songs ideas, drawings and “other creative ideations.”

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Egon insists that they are “donated to a university or government archive” or a “museum or other institution of [Alapatt’s] choosing”.

The lawsuit filed on Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California claims that the notebooks were deemed by DOOM as “secret and confidential.”

In 2010, DOOM travelled to the UK and was prohibited from returning to the U.S. due to immigration issues.

During his time in the UK - where he remained until his death in 2020 - his notebooks were left in his Los Angeles studio, with the lawsuit claiming that Alapatt “took unlawful possession” of the books around six years later.

“Alapatt never consulted with DOOM about his acquisition of the notebooks and took advantage of DOOM’s being out the country to obtain them,” the lawsuit says according to Billboard.

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Alapatt allegedly lied at first, saying he didn’t have them, until the landlord of DOOM’s studio claimed that Alapatt did have them.

After this Alapatt allegedly told DOOM he had the notebooks as DOOM owed $12,500 in past-due rent, therefore if someone did not pay it off, the landlord was going to destroy the possessions he left behind.

As Alapatt claims to have paid the rent on DOOM’s behalf, he said that the physical notebooks themselves were legally his property, according to the complaint.

Before DOOM’s death in 2020, Alapatt allegedly offered to send photocopies of the notebook’s content, yet DOOM declined.

DOOM’s estate alleges that Alapatt sent a hard drive with scans of every notebook which, the lawsuit claims, proves that Alapatt was infringing on the estate’s intellectual property.

“Although Alapatt has professed that he ‘does not intend to publish’ the unauthorized digital copies he made, he does not have to ‘publish’ the copies of his infringing copies to be liable,” reads the lawsuit. “Regardless, [DOOM’s estate] alleges that Alapatt actually shared the copies of the notebook he made with others.”

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In a statement sent to Billboard, Alapatt’s lawyer Kenneth Freundlich said the following: “Mr. Alapatt looks forward to his day in court to dismiss these frivolous and untrue allegations. Mr. Alapatt rescued these books from DOOM’s unpaid landlord who had taken possession of all of his belongings."

The statement continues: "With DOOM’s blessing, Mr. Alapatt intended to donate the books to either the Smithsonian or the Cornell University Hip Hop Archive, where they could be considered and studied by scholars, in the same way that manuscripts by great poets or sheet music by great composers are. Mr. Alapatt will do everything he can to ensure that these historically significant books are archived and protected.”

A trial-by-jury has been requested.

[Via: Billboard]

Becky Buckle is Mixmag's Multimedia Editor, follow her on Twitter