Kane Brown Countersues Ex-Producer, Alleges Fraudulent Contract

Kane Brown has responded to a breach of contract lawsuit from a former producer by filing a counterclaim that alleges their original contract was fraudulent.

The 25-year-old singer struck back at his former producer, Polow da Don — whose real name is Jamal Jones — a month after Jones filed suit against Brown, accusing the singer of breaching a contract they signed in 2015. Jones claimed to have "discovered" Brown before any label would accept him, and he produced three songs on Brown. One of those songs, "Used to Love You Sober," went on to help launch Brown's now multi-platinum career, and Jones' suit claims that Brown and his team reached out to Sony and signed a deal that excluded him after he held the exclusive rights to Brown's services and was trying to get him signed to Epic Records.

Nashville's Tennessean newspaper reports that in a counterclaim filed on Monday (March 18), Brown claims that Jones “is unsatisfied with the millions of dollars in royalties, revenue and income he has made off of Kane Brown’s hard work" and says the producer "fraudulently induced Mr. Brown into signing a lopsided recording agreement in 2015 and repeatedly misled Mr. Brown and others to protect it."

In the 51-page filing, attorneys for Brown allege that the original agreement between the producer — whose other credits include Usher, Rihanna, Pitbull and Nicki Minaj — is fraudulent because the producer and his company, Zone 4, significantly misrepresented their ability to further Brown's career. Due to an agreement with Epic Records that they did not disclose, Brown alleges, they had limited means of negotiating on Brown's behalf with any other label.

"Mr. Brown would not have entered the 2015 agreement with Zone 4 had he known that Zone 4 was contractually prohibited by operation of the Secret 2013 Epic/Sony Deal from shopping his recording to any record labels other than Epic/Sony," the counter-complaint states.

Brown's filing also claims that Jones and Zone 4 signed a different agreement with Brown’s current label in 2016 that nullified any other claims he may have over the 2015 deal. Brown is asking the court to dismiss Jones' lawsuit and return to Brown "any and all revenue" that derived from the 2015 deal and his work with Jones.

Brown's representatives declined to comment on the counterclaim when contacted by the Tennessean. Jones and Zone 4's lawyers did not respond to a request to comment on the matter.

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