H.E.R. sues record label, seeks release from her contract with MBK Entertainment

nme.com:

H.E.R. (aka Gabriella Wilson) has filed a lawsuit against her longtime record label, MBK Entertainment, pleading to be released from her contract with it.The label is owned by Wilson’s current manager, Jeff Robinson, with whom she signed in 2011 at age 14.

According to court documents obtained by The Blast (via Variety), the singer claims that her long-held contract has exceeded the seven-year statute specified by California’s business and professions laws (it reached that point in May 2019), and therefore violates the state’s labor codes.As a result, Wilson claims that MBK “has significantly limited” her “employment rights”, and that she “has not been free to provide her recording services except as permitted or dictated by MBK”.“Wilson’s seven years have run… MBK’s attempts to thwart this important and fundamental California public policy should not be condoned,” the lawsuit reads.Elsewhere in the suit, Wilson alleges that upon signing her to his management, Robinson fired her previous law firm before bringing in his own lawyers, causing subsequent contracts and touring agreements to be negotiated by Robinson’s representation.

Wilson claimed that “those lawyers took [five per cent] of the deals they negotiated”, despite the singer allegedly never agreeing to that fee.With California’s seven-year statute allegedly expired, Wilson is seeking to be released from her MBK contract.

She asked the court to officially acknowledge the label’s violation, which would mean her agreement is “voidable and may not be enforced”.To date, Wilson has released just one studio album as H.E.R. – 2021’s ‘Back of My Mind’, which earned the R&B singer a Grammy nomination for Album Of The Year.