Rapper Kanye West contract with EMI Music Publishing that prohibits him from “retiring as a songwriter.”

The songwriter, producer, and rapper Kanye West is locked into a “lopsided” contract with EMI Music Publishing and can’t retire. Read on for the tea spill…

CelebNMusic247.com reports that Kanye West says he is stuck in a “lopsided” contract with EMI which prohibits him from “retiring as a songwriter.”

The legal red tape goes on for miles and Kanye West is STUCK, according to a lawsuit filed in January in a California state court.

West alleges that he “has been laboring under [a contract with EMI] since 2003” and needs court assistance to regain “his freedom.”

The suit is a 45-plus page contract that the rapper first entered into in October 2003 ahead of the release of his first album, The College Dropout.

As for the label, EMI was tasked with handling the “music publishing aspects of West’s career.”

The Fashion Law reports:

On the other hand, West agreed to write and deliver a minimum number of songs – each of which is embodied on a studio album “of at least 35 minutes,” “released by one of a handful of ‘major’ record-labels,” and written by West, himself, to a certain extent – in exchange for an advance of a few hundred thousand dollars plus royalties

With these and other factors in mind, including increases in the number of songs required of West and EMI’s ability to extend the contract as many as five times (which it did in 2005, 2006, 2009, 2011, and 2014, as agreed upon by West), the rapper’s legal team argues that “EMI could purport to require Mr. West to continue to render exclusive services to EMI for years, perhaps even for the rest of his life.”

The problem with that, according to Kanye’s counsel?

California state law prohibits personal services contracts that last for more than 7 years as a matter of public policy.

West’s counsel states:

It makes no difference whether the contract is otherwise fair, or whether the employer has fulfilled its end of the bargain. It matters only whether the services began more than seven years ago.

Bottom line, Ye’s contract should have been terminated by EMI more than hat 9 years ago in 2010, but it’s NOT.

Kanye lawyers argue:

EMI has knowingly, misleadingly, and unlawfully [attempted] to control and exploit one of the world’s most iconic, multi-faceted, and productive talents,” and has “ unjustly earned millions of dollars [and amassed copyright rights in West’s songs] by tethering Mr. West’s songwriting efforts for an unlawful term.

West asked the court to declare that EMI “may no longer enforce that contract against him,” to enable him to claim EMI’s ownership stake in songs he delivered on or after October 1, 2010.

EMI responded by seeking to remove the case from state to federal court (as copyright law is an issue for a federal court) and then, filed a lawsuit of its own, alleging that West’s suit is little more than an “attempt to evade his contractual commitments to EMI.”

To make matters worse the label is throwing more salt in Ye’s face:

EMI asked the court to declare that its contract with West “is a valid and binding agreement under New York law” basically they are saying:

West has no right to litigate the [issues at play in the lawsuit filed in California] in any court other than the federal or state courts located in New York.

It gets worse, EMI’s new suit “sets up a battle over forum and choice of law with West likely to argue that parties can’t contract around the California” state law barring contracts that last for more than 7 years, according to the Hollywood Report’s Eriq Garner.