“Hip Hop Weekly” Not Paying Freelancers? You Don’t Say!
As if being totally irrelevant wasn’t quite enough, the publication Hip Hop Weekly is apparently unfamiliar with the concept of paying people who work for you. In a truly brilliant move, someone at the publication sent out an invite to the magazine’s 50th anniversary bash to a wide list of those associated with the magazine earlier this week–only said list included quite a few contributors that the publisher just didn’t feel like paying. Wacky e-mails ensued, as did the threat of a class-action lawsuit and a protest at the upcoming BET Hip Hop Awards. And then one unpaid photographer got separate phone calls from publishers David Mays and Benzino, who were apparently playing out a “good cop, mentally imbalanced cop” scenario in which Benzino “was totally ignorant and foul,” and eventually had a photo editor to step in and do damage control. Good times. [Gawker]
