J. Cole’s legal team isn’t just denying Cam’ron’s claims. They’re accusing the Harlem veteran of filing his lawsuit without warning as a way to “publicly disparage” Cole and gain leverage over a song he once happily signed off on.
Cole filed his first formal answer on Tuesday (Feb. 10), responding to the suit Cam’ron (real name Cameron Giles) brought last October over “Ready ’24.”
The track, recorded in 2022, landed on Cole’s 2024 mixtape Might Delete Later with Cam’ron contributing a verse he wrote and performed himself.
“Plaintiff encouraged and blessed defendants’ use of his performance, as it was to his career benefit,” Cole’s attorney Christine Lepera wrote in the filing, first reported by Billboard.
In other words, Cole’s side is framing the feature as a favor Cam was glad to receive, not a deal with strings attached.
Cam’ron tells a very different story. His October complaint says he only agreed to hop on the record under specific terms.
Those included final approval before release, credit as both a writer and a performer, and a return favor from Cole in the form of a verse on a future Cam’ron song or an appearance on his It Is What It Is podcast.
Two years later, with Cole having refused to honor his agreement to collaborate with plaintiff on either a single or on the podcast, defendants nevertheless released the sound recording,” his lawyers wrote at the time. That podcast angle stands out, since a Cole sit down on Cam’s show would have been a real get.
Cole’s attorneys don’t deny the topic came up. Plaintiff asked Cole to appear on his podcast, and he and Cole discussed the possibility of Cole appearing on plaintiff’s podcast, but no commitment was ever made by Cole to do so nor was there any agreement or condition related to ‘Ready ’24’ to do so,” the filing reads.
The response goes further on the money side. Lepera writes that only after the song came out did Cam begin “to demand unreasonable conditions never agreed to by Cole, or an excessive fee inconsistent with industry standards for a featured performance.”
Cole’s team also says Cam’ron appeared on the track “voluntarily and without condition,” never objected “prior to its commercial release,” and “is not, and never was, a joint author or co-owner of the sound recording.” That last point cuts right at the credit and compensation claims at the heart of the suit.
The stakes aren’t small. Might Delete Later debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 and stayed on the chart for eight weeks, making it one of the bigger rap releases of 2024.
Attorneys for Cam’ron didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Given how freely Cam speaks his mind on his own platform, his side of this probably won’t stay confined to court papers for long.
