Los Angeles-based Priority recording artist Bad Azz is filing a $500,000lawsuit against Tupac Shakur's estate|, as well as Deathrow Records,Interscope Records, Joshua's Dream, Interscope Pearl Music, Suge Publishing,and Warner-Tamerlane Publishing Corp., for breach of fiduciary duty, LanhamAct violations, breach of implied contract, misappropriation of voice,accounting, and declaratory relief. In the US District Court of Californiaon Friday, August 20, Bad Azz alleged said parties failed to pay royaltiesor properly credit him for rhyming on, and co-writing, "Krazy," a songfeatured on 2Pac's 1996 album, Makeveli's The Don Killuminati: The SevenDay Theory.

The suit reads, in part, "As [Bad Azz] and Tupac were co-writers of thesong, Tupac and Afeni [2Pac's mother and estate administrator], owed [BadAzz] fiduciary duties of loyalty, trust, and confidence which required Tupacand Afeni to act in the best interests of [Bad Azz] and not to use theirfiduciary position for their own benefit or to the detriment of [Bad Azz].Tupac and Afeni breached their fiduciary duties by 1) not accounting to andpaying [Bad Azz] his share of revenue generated by the song; and 2) failingto take steps to assure [Bad Azz] received appropriate label credit as asongwriter." Bad Azz is seeking back royalties for his work on theMakeveli album, which Soundscan credits as having sold over 3.5million copies.

But that isn't the end of Afeni Shakur's legal issues. The estate ofOrlando Anderson, an uncharged suspect in 2Pac's fatal shooting, has filedsuit against the Shakur estate, as well as its administrators, three lawfirms, and four attorneys, seeking damages to be determined. The plaintiffaccuses them of breach of oral contract and malicious prosecution, chargingthat Shakur's estate didn't make good on their half of a May 1998 agreementto dismiss a 1997 wrongful-death suit against Anderson, which they furtherclaim was filed with malice and without probable cause. Allegedly, thedefendants made this agreement in return for his dismissal of a 1997 suithe'd filed against Shakur's estate, in which he claimed to have been injuredand subjected to emotional distress at 2Pac's hand in Las Vegas, Nevada, in1996. According to Billboard, the parties had allegedly agreed to asettlement of $78,000 before Anderson was shot to death on May 29, 1998.- Werner