Chance The Rapper Sues Former Manager

Chance the Rapper is firing back at his former manager in a new lawsuit.

The Chicago rapper, whose real name is Chancelor Bennett, is suing Pat Corcoran for allegedly exploiting his position and damaging the musician’s reputation by demanding kickbacks, according to the Chicago Tribune.

The lawsuit, filed Feb. 19 in Cook County court in Illinois, comes over two months after Corcoran’s company sued the rapper for $2.5 million in unpaid expenses and commissions, accusing his former client of ignoring his professional advice which led to the underwhelming success of his 2019 album The Big Day.

The new lawsuit from Bennett calls Corcoran’s filing a “gratuitous, fabricated narrative” and requests $1 million for each of the three counts: breach of fiduciary duty, interference that led to the loss of business opportunities and profit, and breach of contract.

“Mr. Corcoran has been paid in full under his management services contract with Mr. Bennett. Yet he chose to file a groundless and insulting lawsuit that ignores his own improper self-dealing and incompetence,” Bennett’s attorneys said in a statement. “Mr. Bennett has moved to dismiss the majority of that meritless lawsuit, and filed his own lawsuit to remedy the harm that Mr. Corcoran caused through his breaches of duty. Mr. Bennett trusts the legal system to reveal the truth of the parties’ relationship in due course.”

The pair began working together after the success of Chance’s second mixtape, Acid Rap, in 2013. Bennett called Corcoran a “marginally competent business manager” as well as a “bullying and abrasive self-promoter,” while alleging that Corcoran used “deception, intimidation, and verbal abuse” in an attempt to “advance his own separate business interests.”

Bennett claims Corcoran “effectively sabotaged” a deal that would have made him the “face” of music distributor UnitedMasters and tried to leverage a touring deal with Live Nation to benefit his own wine business, No Fine Print. He also accuses Corcoran of seeking kickbacks from merchandise vendors by threatening that Bennett would only hire the vendor in return for an equity interest in the company.

Additionally, Bennett disputes Corcoran’s claims surrounding The Big Day. Bennett says he spent “hours upon hours in the studio,” while Corcoran was “increasingly absent from his managerial role” and failed to come up with a marketing plan for the album. He also blames Corcoran for botching the release of vinyl orders, resulting in more than $1 million in refunds and free merchandise to disappointed fans.

Bennett, who terminated his relationship with Corcoran in April 2020, says his former manager has not transferred the chanceraps.com domain or turned over his fan mailing list to him. He is seeking a jury trial.