Chance the Rapper defeated his former manager Pat Corcoran in court, but a $35 jury verdict proved the victory tasted like defeat.
Rapper Chance walked out of a Chicago courtroom on Friday with a legal victory that felt more like a draw.
A jury rejected his former manager Pat Corcoran’s claim for $3.8 million in unpaid commissions, but the rapper only received $35 from his own $1 million countersuit.
The two-and-a-half-week trial ended with a verdict in which both sides claimed they had some form of vindication, although the numbers told a different story.
Corcoran, known as “Pat the Manager,” has been Chance’s right-hand man since 2012, building the rapper’s empire from the ground up.
He claimed to have struck a 15% management deal that included a three-year “sunset clause” allowing him to collect commissions even after they parted ways in 2020.
question? They never wrote it down.
Corcoran’s attorney, Robert D. Sweeney, pointed to Chance’s 2016 album “Coloring Book,” which spent 125 weeks on the Billboard 200 chart and won three Grammy Awards the following year, as proof of Pat’s worth.
He believes Chance’s 2025 album Star Line, which only stayed on the charts for a week after their breakup, showed the rapper needed Pat’s guidance.
Chance’s legal team painted a completely different picture. His attorney, Precious S. Jacobs-Perry, argued there was no evidence of any sunset clause other than what Pat said.
She highlighted 24,000 unfulfilled merchandise orders from 2019 and accused Cochran of using his position to enrich himself through side businesses unrelated to Chance’s career.
The jury sided with Chance on the breach of fiduciary duty claim, but the $35 award suggested they didn’t think his claim for damages had much merit.
