Travis Scott Was Cleared of Astroworld Charges But Must Face a Jury Trial & Here’s Why

Drake took a breather from diss tracks and playing with AI to let his OVO artist Partynextdoor have the New Music Friday spotlight. If only Big Sean and Bryson Tiller were so lucky. In other news today:

• Song streams & revenue 💰️ 

• Travis Scott was cleared of Astroworld charges but must face trial & this is why 🔎 

• How Tupac’s estate could still sue Drake for deleted AI diss track 🤖 

• New Music Friday releases 💿️ 

• Industry Insights 📈 

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Song Streams & Revenue

It’s a new week and a new song revenue chart. As reported by Hits Daily Double, which tracks streaming revenue week over week, the above chart reflects the streaming period from April 12 to 18.

Future and Metro Boomin are still dominating streaming, “Like That” brought in $139K from 30M streams in its 4th week and “We Still Don’t Trust You” debuted with $63K from 13M streams. GloRilla’s “Wanna Be” debuted with $65K from 14M streams.

Travis Scott Was Cleared of Astroworld Charges But Must Face a Jury Trial—Here’s Why

Drake managed to escape litigation for the 2021 Astroworld tragedy, but his “Sicko Mode” co-star isn’t getting off the hook. A Houston judge denied Travis Scott’s motion to be dismissed from the billion-dollar civil lawsuit, and he must now face a looming jury trial set to begin next month.

Why is Travis still facing a trial?

Thousands of lawsuits were filed over the deaths and injuries that occurred at Astroworld, and it’s hard to keep track of which lawsuit is which if you’re only reading the headlines. Travis was found not guilty of criminal charges relating to Astroworld in June 2023, but civil law differs from criminal. 

Think of criminal law like cancel culture—it’s an individual vs. society. Civil law is like rap beef—it’s individual vs. individual. Or, in this case, a dispute between private parties.

The upcoming trial is a single class action lawsuit combining 2,5000 civil suits into one, set to take place in Texas state court. The lawsuit seeks billions of dollars in potential damages from Travis, Live Nation, and other organizers for their alleged carelessness in planning the event.

Getting to trial has taken this long because much of the last two years were spent in discovery. You may remember the headline of Travis being questioned by plaintiffs’ attorneys for eight hours in October 2023—that was related to this suit.

What’s the worst possible outcome?

Another key difference between criminal and civil is the possible repercussions. Criminal law, like Young Thug’s RICO trial, can result in a lengthy prison sentence and a criminal record. Civil law can’t send you to jail, but it can bankrupt you. 

If found guilty, Travis could have less millions to brag about, but he’s already in the clear for criminal charges, and there will be no #FreeJacques alongside #FreeJeffrey as Young Thug fights for his freedom.

Drake Removed “Taylor Made Freestyle,” But Can Tupac’s Estate Still Take Legal Action?

Earlier this week, Tupac’s estate sent Drake a cease and desist over the AI use of Tupac’s voice and likeness in “Taylor Made Freestyle.” The surprise diss track, only released on social media, saw two of Kendrick’s idols (Tupac and Snoop Dogg) pitted against him, pleading with him to respond to Drake or risk tarnishing West Coast rap’s legacy. 

The petty move did what it intended: diss Kendrick on a whole other level and get the internet talking. Deleted or not, it can’t be erased from the timeline of this rap civil war, which will go down in history.

Tupac’s estate defends Kendrick Lamar

The strongly worded letter penned by an attorney for Tupac’s estate not only gave Drake an ultimatum (delete the track in 24 hours or face legal action) but explicitly condemned the use of Tupac’s voice to take shots at Kendrick. 

“The unauthorized, equally dismaying use of Tupac’s voice against Kendrick Lamar, a good friend to the Estate who has given nothing but respect to Tupac and his legacy publicly and privately, compounds the insult,” attorney Howard King wrote.

The legal repercussions Drake could face

The unauthorized use of AI to mimic real artists has been one of the music industry’s most difficult legal problems since piracy and the LimeWire days. However, Tupac’s attorneys outlined two ways they could sue Drake and the existing legislation on their side.

#1 Publicity Rights 

The freestyle violated Tupac’s publicity rights—the legal power to control how others use his image and likeness. California’s existing publicity laws, cited in the letter by his attorneys, would consider the unauthorized use of Tupac’s voice a violation.

#2 Intellectual property

Drake might have penned the lyrics for AI Tupac, but the song was likely created by an AI model that needed to be “trained” with existing Tupac music recordings. Copyrighted inputs are a difficult legal issue, lacking a clear definition of right and wrong in the context of AI.

However, copyrights have been cited in several ongoing lawsuits against AI developers and are a valid angle for Tupac’s estate to sue Drake.

“It is hard to believe that [Tupac’s record label]’s intellectual property was not scraped to create the fake Tupac AI on the Record,” King wrote.

The letter called “Taylor Made Freestyle” a “blatant abuse of the legacy of one of the greatest hip-hop artists of all time. The Estate would never have given its approval for this use.”

New Music Friday

Partynextdoor officially returned with P4 last night, and if you see an NSFW image on your timeline today, chances are it’s the P4 album cover 🫣 Here’s all the music you can listen to now—categorized by 💿️ for albums and 🎶 for singles:

• 💿️ PARTYNEXTDOOR 4 by Partynextdoor

• 💿️ BANA by Tana

• 💿️ The Coldest by Skilla Baby

• 💿️ Princess Pop That by Anycia

• 💿️ My Gift 2 You by Hardrock

• 💿️ 424 by Mike Dean

• 🎶 “Back To Back” by Nardo Wick, Future

• 🎶 “1:59” by Normani, Gunna

• 🎶 “Buried Alive” by Chance the Rapper

• 🎶 “Love Me JeJe” by Tems

• 🎶 “President” by Southside, Destroy Lonely, Ken Carson

• 🎶 “Can’t Come Back” by Coi Leray

• Takeoff to posthumously appear on Ye and Ty Dolla $ign’s ‘Vultures Vol. 2.’ Cited as one of the “highlight tracks” from the upcoming project tentatively titled “Let Me Chill Out.”

• Kid Cudi cancels ‘Insano’ world tour after breaking foot at Coachella. “The injury is much more serious than I thought,” Cudi wrote in a heartfelt note announcing the news.

• Biden signs TikTok ban bill into law, starting the clock for ByteDance to divest. The company has an initial nine months to sort out a deal or TikTok will be banned in the US.

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