Talib Kweli Puts University of Utah on Blast Over Contract Dispute

After being praised by the University of Utah's student body, faculty and staff for his keynote address during the school's Jan. 21 Martin Luther King celebration, Talib Kweli and the university got into a contract dispute and the rapper claimed that the school failed to live up to the terms of the contract and refused to pay him.

In an email exchange between Kweli, the American Program Bureau and the University's Office for Equity and Diversity communications director Neeland Chand obtained by The Salt Lake Tribune, the Brooklyn native details the events of the day and argues that he not only lived up to the agreement, but exceeded expectations by speaking longer than originally agreed upon and taking the time to answer questions from students.

Chand had initially sent a message to the APB saying that Kwlie was "consistently unnapproachable and unavailable to interact with our event attendees." And, "We were hugely dissatisfied, considering the money and time invested, as opposed to the value we received in return." The university allegedly asked Kweli to refund $2,500 upon payment.

Chand also wrote that before the rapper's scheduled keynote address, Kweli declined to give a 10-minute "spoken word" performance, "which resulted in embarrassment for us and, yet again, disappointment for our audience."

Not taking the allegations sitting down, the "Get By" rapper responded with a lengthy e-mail that called out the University for its purported story.

"The school is attempting to lie on me as to not pay me," he wrote. "The contract states that I get paid day of. I fulfilled what I was contractually obligated to do, and if there were any issues, they should have been addressed to me while I was at the school, not a week later with this bullshit letter. I expect to get paid in full. Today. Or I am going public with everything in this email. I will personally tag every student who tweeted that day, post on my Facebook and Twitter about how University of Utah is trying to rip me off. Fuck around if you want. This will not be pretty for the school."

The rapper then took to Twitter and in a string of since-deleted tweets, Kweli explained the situation until the school paid him. "Got paid. Now deleting the tweets it took to get paid," he tweeted on Jan. 28.

The University of Utah's account respond with, "Your visit was a highlight of MLK week. We don't want it marred by differences on appearance details. Thx for celebrating w/ us!"

Ironically, Talib recently dropped a project called Fuck The Money.

Read the full e-mail from Kweli to Chand below.

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