Chance the Rapper vs. Pat the Manager | Matt Connarton Unleashed

0:00 Speaker 1: But this is from Digitalmusicnews dot com and I did not know that this was going on, but apparently it's been going on for a while. It says here Marathon Chants the Rapper versus Pat the Manager. Dispute officially heads to trial. Pat says he personally lost three hundred and fifty thousand dollars plus running Chance the Rappers merch operation. And it's funny too, because we were talking.

0:29 Speaker 2: Earlier about how artists make their money.

0:32 Speaker 1: How artists make their money on merch because touring, you know, most of that money goes to you know, Live Nation and whomever else. Right, they suck all that.

0:41 Speaker 3: Outtah and put all the diesel in the trucks, which is probably really expensive these days.

0:46 Speaker 1: Touring is very cost prohibital. Oh seriously, in many ways, a lot of a lot of artists ells, buses, TEP a lot to it.

0:53 Speaker 2: You got to feed everybody.

0:54 Speaker 1: It's all very hard. So yeah, you got to make that money on merch T shirts and you know T shirts of course the number one itam at shows. But apparently something has gone wrong between Chance the Rapper and Pat the now ex manager. So it says here again, this is from Digital musicnews dot Com, which, again, as I mentioned earlier, a great website for music industry news if you're interested in this. The USA versus Live Nation antitrust trial isn't the only music music world legal battle that's unfolding now.

1:24 Speaker 1: Chance the Rapper and Pat the manager or ex manager have taken their long running contract dispute to the courtroom. It says here we've been covering the ugly clash of former friends and business partners. Chance was like a brother to me in manager Pat Cochrane's Pat Corkran's own words, for over half a decade, but the showdown, technically consisting of a multimillion dollar commission complaint from Corkoran and a distinct unjust enrichment action from Chance, just recently headed to trial in Chicago.

2:01 Speaker 1: Unsurprisingly, then, Corkoran, during a lengthy direct examination, discussed more than a few components of his and Chances professional relationship. With the benefit of hindsight and objectivity, we can see the association, though fruitful at the outset, was seemingly destined to deteriorate in any event, It says, as Corcoran explained on the stand, it was his parents and members of Chances family, not the grown, albeit young and inexperienced men behind the deal who'd initially sorted the loosely defined details of the manager client arrangement.

2:39 Speaker 1: Now right off the bat, before we go any further, when you see loosely defined details of a manager client arrangement, that you know there's going to be trouble because everything has to be very clear and specific and written out, and entertainment lawyers beauty talk about you've heard who oh well, sure, yes.

3:04 Speaker 2: Not in the contract. It's not there.

3:06 Speaker 1: That's right, that's right, it says here. Thrust into commercial prominence following the release of Acid Rap, Chance opened for high profile acts, including mac Miller, all while Corkran assumed sweeping responsibilities and struggled to personally cover day to day expenses, the manager said before the jury. Concerningly, Corkran also described Chance's alleged unwillingness to sign agreements of any kind. Quote he didn't want to sign or have you know, a written agreement with anybody unquote, and reiterated that the artist's music wasn't being monetized whatsoever.

3:45 Speaker 1: Quote. There wasn't even music being commercialized unquote, even as he was performing on the same stage as Macklemore and others. So that's a pretty shoddy business here. The chance the rapper business is not not so much. And uh, you know why Corkoran would want anything to do with anybody who doesn't even want to sign anything. A written agreement of any kind is bizarre and not.

4:11 Speaker 2: Smart by any stretch of the imagination.

4:14 Speaker 3: I don't care if you're best of friends, bosom buddies that grew up ever since you were in diapies together from being little. Put it in writing. Put it in a contract. Make it clear, Yes, what's your expectation, what you're gonna do, what you're gonna get. If it's not there, it doesn't exist. I don't care you shake a hand on it. I don't care whatever that is that's not gonna hold up when the when it comes down to it, this money involved friends are no friends, married or not married. Put it in writing because it's just better for both of you.

4:46 Speaker 3: There's no question of expectations. It's clear, they're defined, and if somebody doesn't kept it, keep up their end.

4:52 Speaker 2: You have a way of recourse and you're not just out of everything. And especially you know, bands.

5:00 Speaker 3: Sometimes I think can fall victim of things like this, because you have somebody that gets excited about your music and they want they want to quote unquote help you, and it sounds great up front, but they actually don't have the wherewithal to bring it to fruition to make it real for you, and then you're in this nasty, horrible situation. You better off always putting everything in writing and making it clear.

5:23 Speaker 1: Oh absolutely, absolutely Again, this is from Digital Musicnews dot Com. It says on the label side, the alleged aversion to signed and sealed contracts has not changed. Chance self released last year's star Line that was apparently that's his newest album. Building on this overview, Corcoran proceeded to explore how he'd stepped well outside the confines of traditional managerial duties to develop a hands on merch operation and later a radio promotion strategy, and between manufacturing the actual merch renting warehouse space, expanding the team on mid and influx of orders, and more, he was quote losing his shirt on running the merchandise operation unquote as it was hemorrhaging money.

6:09 Speaker 1: Fans placed nearly ten thousand orders in the month after Chance in twenty seventeen took home a trio of Grammys.

6:18 Speaker 2: Per Corkoran, you try to do too much for one person, is this problem?

6:23 Speaker 1: Yeah, that happens.

6:24 Speaker 3: And you try to do that because you think you're gonna save money, and you don't because it's just not possible to keep up.

6:30 Speaker 1: And you try to do that because you think it's all gonna pay off, right, because here you've got, you know.

6:34 Speaker 2: Like running a radio campaign. That's a lot of work, it is, that's not I would know, Yeah, you would know.

6:40 Speaker 1: I watch you do it a lot.

6:41 Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a lot of work and a lot of follow up and a.

6:44 Speaker 3: Lot of Right, there's a lot to it just doing that, plus he's trying to set the venues. Plus he's trying to make the t shirts and who's printing them and where's the design coming from.

6:55 Speaker 2: That's too much. That's crazy to try and do that all in one.

6:58 Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, you're better off Pirre and the pros to do what you need him to do and then bringing it in.

7:02 Speaker 2: You're going to spend less money in the long run.

7:04 Speaker 1: Right, Right.

7:06 Speaker 3: It sounds to me like they set them they set themselves up for failure.

7:11 Speaker 1: Corkoran said, quote, I think it was like three hundred and fifty four thousand dollars was the loss that I took on operating the Chance Merchandise operation unquote needless to say, revenue sharing agreement or not, this alleged loss wouldn't prove an encouraging sign for any business partnership. Speaking of that revenue sharing agreement, Corkoran also spoke of his commission fifteen percent of across the board net earnings with a three year sunset clause in his recollection for serving as Chances manager, which, as with the rest of his testimony, will certainly factor in to the remainder of the trial.

7:52 Speaker 3: Well, not a very good manager if he's going to try and wear a zillion different hats and expect that's going to work.

7:59 Speaker 1: I don't understand though, Oh this agreement with a three year sunset clause? What so? Was that a verbal agreement? Because Chance wouldn't sign anything, right.

8:13 Speaker 3: Unless he signed something. But it was so vaguely written that maybe it sounds like it was just well it was a good business sense, because these aren't.

8:23 Speaker 2: Good business mess Everything in vague.

8:26 Speaker 3: Discriminating, Like, how do you even enforce this contract? If everything's well? I think I'll do this. Yeah, they set each other up for failure. They really didn't, and they backed obviously backed each other on what they thought they were going to do. He fell short and couldn't handle to do in the work of five different people.

8:43 Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, that's what he's trying to do.

8:46 Speaker 1: It's a mess.

8:47 Speaker 2: It is a big mess.

8:48 Speaker 3: And I can't see that either one of them are really going to come out winners in this.

8:51 Speaker 2: It sounds to me like everybody's.

8:53 Speaker 1: Going to come out at a lot.

8:54 Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, they're probably both going to be lucky to walk away with anything in their bank accounts by the time this is done. But he did it to himself. I mean what manager does all? Like, really, do managers really put all that up front?

9:07 Speaker 2: No, like they're.

9:08 Speaker 3: Gonna take all the money out of their own bank account. They buy the T shirts themselves, they do all of that.

9:13 Speaker 2: But I've not heard of that.

9:14 Speaker 1: That's like nuts, that.

9:16 Speaker 2: Doesn't sound smart.

9:18 Speaker 3: Like I know that management companies might invest in in like an album or something like that, but I've never heard him to do everything like this.

9:27 Speaker 1: These people both sounds crazy, Like chance the rapper won't sign it is a Grammy.

9:32 Speaker 3: When they made this agreement, was this like something in the middle of the night.

9:36 Speaker 1: Thing that maybe they're both severely mentally ill. I mean, Chance the rapper sounds like he's got some kind of well he sounds Chance sounds like he's crazy. This is a Grammy winning artist, and he won't sign a contract with anybody. He won't.

9:48 Speaker 2: He's eccentric, not crazy. Money.

9:50 Speaker 3: Remember when you don't have money, then you become crazy. When you have money, you're eccentric.

9:56 Speaker 1: But he doesn't have any money, that's the thing. He's got nothing to show for it.

9:59 Speaker 2: He spent it all trying to do that.

10:01 Speaker 1: I mean, what, well, no, is it sounds like Pat the manager spent all the money. He spent his own money. Chance, but what money did he get? This probably doesn't have any money either. He can't sign a.

10:12 Speaker 3: Martelling because it's not being done right. Then, yeah, he's not making anything.

10:15 Speaker 1: Nothing's being monetized correctly. Apparently.

10:18 Speaker 3: No, they're spending money. They're basically throwing money out the windows here and there, and that.

10:23 Speaker 1: They just sounds like, I like they're both idiots or they're nuts or something.

10:29 Speaker 2: I don't know.

10:29 Speaker 1: These are not These are not uh, these are not smart moves. These are not well adjusted humans.

10:34 Speaker 3: So the question is are they going to come out of this with their shirts or are they going to lose everything?

10:39 Speaker 1: Well sounds like Pat's already lost everything. He's three hundred and fifty four thousand dollars in the hole.

10:45 Speaker 2: Interesting to see how this battle goes, though.

10:48 Speaker 1: Yeah, I didn't know about any of this until this morning, but this is very interesting.

10:52 Speaker 3: Right, and I want to know, like how much I want to see more? Like what else did they have evidence? Rise?

10:58 Speaker 2: You know, who's going to win? Is someone going to end up paying somebody else?

11:03 Speaker 1: Probably don't have that much evidence wise, if nothing was written down because Chance won't sign a contract with anybody, well.

11:09 Speaker 3: Maybe not, because then if the manager's gonna have receipts like I bought Chance the Wrapper Tree shirts, or I bought Chance the Rapper bandanas, or you know, we pressed X number of CDs. You know, if he's doing all of that up front, he's gonna have receipts for everything he put up front. But if he doesn't have a contract that says he gets reimbursed and he's expecting to just simply sell everything.

11:32 Speaker 2: To make him money somehow crazy? Yeah, that this is not the way. Do not do as these people have done.

11:41 Speaker 1: A cautionary tale, although I don't think most people would. I mean, this is just nuts.

11:45 Speaker 2: No, you would think in this day and age that people would be.

11:48 Speaker 1: That's why I think they're both mentally ill.

11:50 Speaker 3: Smarter to put everything down and writing of what you're going to expect, Yeah, you know, but in doing so in detail, not just vague statements of we're gonna do merch. That's too vague. It's gonna be we're gonna do two hundred T shirts, or we're gonna do you know, five thousand CDs, whatever it is. It's got to be specific and spelled out, or you don't get a lay to stand on. Yeah, you know, if you're expecting this person to do all of this for you while you don't look, which isn't smart. But if you don't want to look and you just expect this person, he's gonna book all your stuff, he's gonna do the photography, he's gonna get the CD pressed, he's gonna do all you merch.

12:30 Speaker 3: He's gonna do everything humanly possible except for spoon feed you.

12:36 Speaker 3: And you don't want to pay attention to that, you're kind of setting yourself up there that when you do turn around and go, oh, no, I have no money.

12:43 Speaker 2: You know why?

12:44 Speaker 1: I just I still think they're both non composition.

12:46 Speaker 3: I feel like they were maybe I don't know where they inebriated when they made this agreement, because especially anything verbal in this day and age, you would think people would know better than to do anything as a verbal contract. Right, Like I said, I don't care if you've been bestie friends since you were both little teeny babies and Diape is running around looking for the you know how to stand up and walk street. I don't care how long you've known each other. You've put it in writing, spell it out.

13:13 Speaker 3: It's just better for both of you. There's no question you're both on firm foundation and you know what your job is.

13:19 Speaker 2: You know what their job is.

13:20 Speaker 3: And what the expectations are going to be for the end of the project. You know, it's just smart five minutes, even if you write it out on a piece of paper and sign it, it's better than any than nothing.

13:34 Speaker 2: You'd better to have a lawyer, but.

13:36 Speaker 3: You know in the pitch at least do that do that so much?

13:40 Speaker 1: All right?

13:41 Speaker 3: Well, I would think you would know better, Like you're that big of a guy, and like, what about this manager? How many artists has he managed? Does he do this with other artists? Is this the only manager? Like where is he in the management scheme of the world, right,