2Pac‘s “Dear Mama” has been placed at the center of a lawsuit brought by a bus driver against several mega-corporations, including Warner Brothers, NBC, Fox, Hulu, and Disney.
Court documents obtained by Music Business Worldwide reveal that Terence Thomas — known professionally as DJ Master Tee — filed a lawsuit against producer Tony Pizarro and Universal Music Group on Friday (November 17). According to the DJ, Pizarro “conspired” with the record label conglomerate to keep Thomas from obtaining his rightful royalties as a co-writer of the song.
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“A self-serving group, led by an upstart music producer, Tony D. Pizarro, conspired with executives at Interscope Records and Universal Music Group (UMG), misappropriated Master Tee’s publishing copyright and master recording copyright and assumed the identity of writer/publisher of Dear Mama’s music,” read the documents.
The lawsuit, which was filed in New York, also sued the production companies that were responsible for bringing the documentary of the same name to the small screen. Thomas seeks an unspecified amount in damages and is requesting a jury trial.
Back in April, The Wrap reported that Dear Mama now has the most-watched premiere episode for an unscripted series in FX’s 28-year history. Dear Mama premiered on FX on April 21.
“It’s only fitting that Allen Hughes’s definitive piece on Tupac and Afeni Shakur delivered a record performance for us and it speaks to Tupac’s enduring legacy,” Nick Grad, president of FX Entertainment, said in a statement. “Allen’s examination of Tupac viewed through the prism of his mother Afeni is a fascinating take that really gets beneath the education and experience that shaped his life and inspired him to become one of the greatest artists ever.”
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The docuseries is about the dynamic mother-son relationship between Afeni Shakur, who was a revolutionary and a member of the Black Panther Party, and 2Pac, who is arguably one of the greatest rappers of all time.
Dear Mama was directed by Allen Hughes, who has directed legendary films such as 1993’s Menace II Society and 1995’s Dead Presidents, as well as the four-part Netflix docuseries The Defiant Ones, which tells the story of Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine.
