NYC hip-hop legends Mobb Deep have filed a $1 million lawsuit against former manager Norman "Perfek Storm" Bell, according to hip-hop site SOHH.com. Apparently, Bell used several Mobb Deep tracks, including singles, on a series of "best of" mixtapes from which the group hasn't seen any income.
According to legal documents published on TMZ, the complaint was filed last Tuesday. Bell will receive 13 charges, including copyright infringement. The unauthorized albums, released with titles like Mobb Deep The Infamous Archives and Purfek Storm The Mixtape Vol. 1, were released at various points during Bell's tenure as the group's manager, which lasted from May 2004 until last November, when he was fired by the group.
Prodigy and Havoc, the group's members, have been working together since 1993 but are currently on hiatus as a group due to Prodigy's October 2007 conviction on charges of unlawful gun possession. He is currently serving over three years in prison. His album H.N.I.C. Pt. 2, recorded before his sentence began, was released in April. Meanwhile, Havoc's past legal wrangles include a 2001 incident in which one of his roommates shot a man over leftover Chinese food. Infamous, indeed.
