Mr Eazi’s emPawa Africa Faces $456,000 Legal Bill After Bad Bunny Case Collapses

The legal battle between Mr Eazi’s emPawa Africa and global music star Bad Bunny has taken a costly turn. Bad Bunny’s legal team is now demanding $456,312 in legal fees after a copyright lawsuit against the Latin superstar was dismissed in court.

The case began in 2023 when Nigerian producer Dera, also known as Ezeani Chidera Godfrey, claimed that Bad Bunny’s song ‘Enséñame a Bailar’ used an uncleared sample from ‘Empty My Pocket,’ a song he produced for Joeboy.

Mr Eazi had publicly supported the claim, accusing Bad Bunny’s team of ignoring attempts to settle the matter properly. However, the case started to fall apart earlier this year. Dera’s lawyers withdrew from the suit in January, and emPawa Africa was later removed from the case for missing important filing deadlines.

Dera also failed to appear at a court hearing in February and missed a final deadline in March. As a result, Judge Otis Wright dismissed the entire lawsuit, finding that Dera had abandoned the case.

While Bad Bunny’s team maintained that they had legally cleared the sample through another distributor, the dispute has resulted in a major financial claim against emPawa Africa. With the case now closed, Mr Eazi’s label is left facing a bill of nearly half a million dollars.