Rapper Tyga May Need a Las Vegas Business Lawyer to Keep Living His "Diamond Life"
Maybe best known at the moment for being Kylie Jenner’s boyfriend, (though whether it’s more than a summer fling remains to be seen), or perhaps for his barely intelligible lyrics in his song “Hookah” in which one is directed to pahh-metha-hookah, in which audiences can assume the artist is referring to the practice of sharing with friends flavored tobacco through a vaporizing instrument native to Iran, it looks like Tyga may now be in trouble with at least one Las Vegas business lawyer. Most artists come to Sin City and get into scrapes by gambling or questionably legal activities, but Tyga’s slip ups may have more to do with ego than raucous troublemaking.
He may think he’s “Still Got It,” but one Vegas promoter is seeking damages for violating a contract this summer, and for going MIA last November. Tyga signed a document with a venue promoter agreeing to a “radius clause,” which any Las Vegas business lawyer would know refers to a basic non-compete clause in which an artist “agrees to refrain from performing at another venue in the area—such as a festival or nightclub—within the weeks before and after a concert they’re booked for.” It helps ticket sales and prices and attendance at the premier club that the artist will be visiting. It’s basically the concept of exclusivity.
But either Tyga’s ego or his egalitarian mindset didn’t thing that this clause really applied to him, despite the fact that he’d signed the agreement, so at the last minute, he decided to “Switch Lanes,” so to speak. Signed up to perform at the Hard Rock Hotel’s Body English nightclub last summer, Tyga’s plaintiffs are claiming that he violated the agreement by “jumping onstage at another venue in Vegas the night before that concert, thus inherently cheapening the value” of his performance the following night. This same promoter is claiming that “Tyga failed to show up for a scheduled performance in Santa Monica last November, and they’re seeking $100,000 in damages overall.”
Now given Tyga’s relative fame, fortune and elevation of ego-centric activities, the Las Vegas business lawyer hired by the plaintiffs probably isn’t surprised that Tyga would go on to “Hijack” the agreement, or that he very likely has his own attorney in his back pocket to deal with these relatively minor legal entanglements. But even the best Las Vegas business lawyer couldn’t save him from the lawsuit he faces in California for “non-payment of rent for a Calabasas, Calif. Home.” Despite all his purported “Cali Love,” Tyga faces court orders to pay at least $80,000 in back rent to a landlord.
It’s not our business what he’s spending his money on, though his song titles (“Dope” and “Coconut Juice”) imply that the wildly successful 26 year old may not yet have learned the lessons of life that include fiscal responsibility and abiding by your contractual word. He’ll figure it out eventually, we’re sure; it just might be an expensive lesson.