Kanye West’s Sunday Service choir seeks $1 million in unpaid wages
The singers who backed West at the Hollywood Bowl a year ago are suing the rapper-producer-designer-presidential hopeful.
The choir that performed with Kanye West at the Hollywood Bowl in November 2019 is suing the rapper-producer-designer-presidential candidate for unpaid wages.
Contract workers with the Sunday Service complained about not receiving overtime pay following the event, which reportedly took weeks to organize.
The supposedly-demanding West is said to have authorized dozens of last-minute changes that resulted in overtime for participants, which they allege has gone unpaid more than a year later.
This suit is the second related to West’s Nebuchadnezzar opera, which took place last year after the release of his Jesus Is King album.
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A hairstylist alleged that she was not paid for her overtime and other costs. She has filed for “unpaid wages, continuing wages, damages, civil penalties, statutory penalties and attorney’s fees.”
The Blast reportedly obtained the court documents, which list a group of “workers” on the musical production as the plaintiffs.
The unnamed hair staffer is leading the suit and claims that West and Live Nation “failed to properly compensate the hair assistant and many dozens of other persons who performed services on the production, including the background actors, performing as audience members.”
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The group is reportedly also taking issue with the way the “defendants oversaw, controlled and ran the production, and the aggrieved employees worked many hours on the production and were not timely paid for their work, or paid at all.”
Kanye started his Sunday Service events in January 2019. The events started as one-hour sessions at his home or rehearsal spaces with West, an active choir and musicians performing worship and non-traditional gospel songs. It expanded to performances across the country in stadiums. The show was even performed at a jail in Houston.
The Sunday Service choir did backup for West on his Jesus Is King album, released last October, then debuted their own subsequent release, the West-led Jesus Is Born, on Christmas Day, two months later.
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