“Of course, I’m loath to bring up the Chance The Rapper story, but it does demonstrate how things can go terribly wrong when an independent artist and their manager refuse to sign with a record label…”
You can expect variations of this sentence to be uttered with predictable regularity by record company executives in the years ahead – especially in front of promising unsigned talent.
For years, the story of Grammy-winning Chance (aka Chancelor Bennett), has been held up as the pinnacle of what independent artists can achieve without any label involvement in the streaming age.
Now, suddenly, it’s become a cautionary tale.
Last Monday (November 30), Chance’s long-time manager, Pat ‘The Manager’ Corcoran, filed a lawsuit against the artist, claiming that he is owed more than $3 million in unpaid commissions.
The suit, filed in Illinois, revealed that Chance sacked Corcoran on April 27 this year, replacing him with Chance’s brother (Taylor Bennett) and father (Ken Bennett).
The artist’s dismissal of Corcoran followed the disappointing performance of Chance’s first studio album, The Big Day – released in July last year – and the scrapping of a subsequent tour following poor ticket sales.
Corcoran’s suit sets out the story of Chance’s meteoric rise under the representation of Pat The Manager LLC. It reads: “The iconic pair of Pat Corcoran and Chancelor Bennett, an artist-manager combo for over eight years, together reimagined and forever changed musical artists’ ability to control their careers.”
Reported By: Jessica Rowe