Richton Park DJ Eric “E-Smoove” Miller filed a lawsuit against Kanye West‘s record label over unreleased songs that were granted to the record company in a settlement over a decade ago. According to Chicago Sun Times, “the suit accuses Universal Music Group and its subsidiaries Def Jam Recordings and Island Records of breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty, fraudulent inducement and violating the Illinois Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act.”

In 2009, Island Def Jam told Miller they had to shelve the songs he crafted with West because they couldn’t secure the rights to their samples. This reasoning is being deemed as “preposterous” in the lawsuit. “Island Def Jam is a pioneering label in sample clearance and clearing samples is a routine function of releasing Kanye West albums, as well as hundreds of other releases in the Island Def Jam catalog,” the suit says.


Frank Micelotta/Getty Images

Miller, who claims to have been the young Yeezy’s mentor, is adamant about these tracks since they display “the frame of mind that [Kanye] was in,” one he qualifies as unique. “You can’t go back there,” Miller said. “You can’t be trying to get signed, starving — well, he wasn’t starving because he lived a middle-class life — but from an artist standpoint he was starving.” Miller continues: “After you’ve had the success and the fame and all that stuff, you can never get that energy back.”

According to Miller, he had met up with Kanye and former Def Jam president Jay-Z. He recalled the Roc Nation mogul saying that the demos in question were “hope to all of those aspiring emcees.”