Wilmington, Delaware USA, September 7, 2010 – There has been a surprising change in the weather in the ongoing Death Row Records owner dispute between the company’s former CEO/President Lara Lavi (note corrected spelling is Laura Lavi) and Canadian banker, Ron Ovenden who is also the Chairman of New Solutions Capital, the private lending company that loaned part of the money to purchase the Death Row Records and Suge Knight Publishing Assets in a California Bankruptcy Proceeding in January 2009.  On August 31, 2010 by electronic filing Laura Lavi filed a lawsuit against Wideawake Deathrow Entertainment LLC (“Deathrow”) to “compel inspection of books and records to investigate potential self-dealing and breaches of fiduciary duty by Ronald Ovenden (http://www.newsolcapital.com/), a member and manager of the Death Row LLC.” Today, the registered agent for Deathrow was served with the complaint.  

This new lawsuit comes after a succession of favorable court results for Ms. Lavi starting with the Canadian Court’s ruling on February 17, 2010 where Mr. Ovenden did not win confirmation that he has control of the Delaware LLC and instead Justice Campbell has sent the case to trial at the end of this year to determine if Mr. Ovenden rightfully removed Ms. Lavi.  Then in June 2010, Mr. Ovenden lost his onerous sanctions motion against Ms. Lavi when Judge Barbara Kapnick ruled that Ms. Lavi did not lie to the New York court.

What is at stake here is control of one of the worlds greatest urban music catalogs.  Death Row Records and Suge Knight Publishing which includes the music of multi platinum artists Dr. Dre, Snoop Doggy Dogg and Tupac Shakur.  Despite being the “David” to Ron Ovenden/New Solutions Capital’s “Goliath”, Ms. Lavi appears to be tenaciously holding on to what seems to still be her desire to keep her promise to all the former Death Row artists when she publically stated last January 2009 that acquiring the Death Row Assets from bankruptcy would bring a “new day” for the artists and producers that made Death Row great.    These artists are all still waiting for that “new day.”  

Death Row is distributed by E-1 Entertainment in North America and the lawsuit references E-1 as another possible source of the company’s books and records. 

Explains Ms. Lavi’s Delaware Counsel David L. Finger of Finger & Slanina, “The Delaware lawsuit is the first step towards getting to the truth about what Mr. Ovenden and his company New Solutions Capital did with the $5million in advances Ms. Lavi raised to capitalize the Death Row LLC.  Only the Court of Chancery of the State of Delaware has jurisdiction over a complaint to compel inspection of a Delaware LLC’s books and records.  Ms. Lavi has every right to these documents as she is an owner and a managing member.”   

Death Row’s President John Payne and New Solutions’ Managing Director, Robert Thompson-So continue to run the day to day operations for Death Row but neither could be reached for this story.  Ms. Lavi was not available for comment either.  According to the public filing, her lawyer’s contact information is:

David L. Finger
Finger & Slanina, LLC, Ph:                                                                dfinger@delawgroup.com
One Commerce Center                                                                     www.delawgroup.com
1201 N. Orange St., 7th floor
Wilmington, DE  19801-1186                                                          PH(302) 573-2525, FAX(302) 573-2524

New York’s famed Fatbeats Records had been something of a Mecca for Hip-Hop fans around the world. The most revered record store in the city where the culture started, Fatbeats was everything from a music retailer to a museum to a hangout. For rap fans, it’s been everything to everyone with something for everybody. Established in 1994, a landmark year for the genre, Fatbeats spent 16 years as the tastemakers of the underground indie-rap scene. After its closing was announced, artists across decades began coming out of the woodwork to perform and say goodbye to “The Last Stop for Hip-Hop” one last time. While most of the week, featuring everyone from DJ Rob Swift and The Artifacts to a Duck Down Records showcase and the Arsonists, felt something like a bunch of random in-store performances all crammed together, the location’s final Friday was something really special. It was the store’s penultimate day and while Saturday’s star-studded lineup featuring Just Blaze and DJ Premier was a sendoff for the ages, Friday night’s festivities felt like a fitting finale.

I arrived at about 5:30 to catch the final half of Jay-Z’s personal turntablist DJ Neil Armstrong’s set, and his ability to get a packed room of sweaty Hip-Hop fans to move is a testament to his talents. It was stifling hot as the fluctuating 50-70 people who were inside the store at any given time were negating any effects the store’s newly installed air conditioning could have had. The dog days of summer outside turned the store into a sauna and every dap/pound/fistbump given was met with a “Double Dare”-esqe splash of sweat. While this would make for a restless and irritated crowd at other Hip-Hop in-stores (including this week’s), there was something oddly zen about the relaxed and on-time schedule-following that made the crowd all the more into the show.

Next to perform was Juice Crew legend Masta Ace who expressed his sentiments for saying goodbye to a “classic location” by “blessing [the audience] with a classic” as he started things off with his verse of Marley Marl’s “The Symphony.” His song choices seemed specifically selected for the store, most touching what telling the crowd “there’s some of you watching me perform right now who I may never see ever again, so I want you to remember this” as he performed an acapella verse from his life-affirming trademark “No Regrets.”

Afterward, Ace sat next to the DJ booth and signed autographs as Outsidaz-member Pace Won and Mr. Green performed a short crowd-pleasing set including “The Rah Rah,” “Children Sing,” “I Declare War” and his Fatbeats single “Sunroof Top,” which he introduced by sharing “I remember hearing of Fatbeats Records when Big L dropped the  ‘Ebonics’ single, so I came here and said ‘yall gotta give me a deal.’” In a magic moment that could only happen at Fatbeats, during the performance of a new song where he reminisces about reading Hip-Hop publication The Source and disagreeing with their ratings, he pointed to the still-nearby Masta Ace and rapped “Ace’s ‘Slaughterhouse,’ to me, was a classic!”

The rest of the night featured Fatbeats favorites past and present doing what they do best one last time. Memorable moments include J-Live doing his famous simultaneous rapping-and-DJing trick, Q-Unique surprising the crowd by taking the mic between sets to pay his respects, PackFM urging the crowd to keep supporting Fatbeats in some capacity as “the energy it takes to go to rapidshare.com is the same energy it takes to go to Fatbeats.com” and Tonedef pointing out the very corner of the store he met PackFM at during a battle in 1999 that also featured Immortal Technique, C-Rayz Walz and a who’s who of the 2000s underground movement. Hosting duties for the night were held by head-honcho DJ Eclipse who did a great job keeping the show moving and made for an appropriate celebration of the store’s life under such unfortunate circumstance. He expressed his gratitude for the Fatbeats regulars and the performers who exemplified the “beats and rhymes, something that made sense, originality” that the store gravitated towards.

After great sets from current generation Fatbeats standards YC the Cynic and Blu-collaborator Sene (both backed by DJ Element), it was time for the homegrown favorites the Brown Bag All Stars. Consisting of J57, The Audible Doctor and Koncept (member Soul Khan was in Florida for a battle) the group first met while working at the store and have since become icons of the modern Fatbeats-era Surreal as it was to see the three rapping behind the turntables not-unlike seeing them behind the counter, the strength of the performance gave the night a feeling of things coming full circle and gave the closing of Fatbeats a sense of closure. Afterward, headliner Pete Rock graced the turntables for a DJ set where he played unreleased beats, never-before-heard songs from upcoming projects and some of his favorites. It was an ending that encapsulated the feeling of getting together with friends and listening to music. Whether it was hearing something for the first time or sharing a favorite with someone else, it’s that same sentiment that made Fatbeats, and that final Friday, so special.