Lady A the Singer Responds to Lady A the Band's Lawsuit

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Lady A the Singer Responds to Lady A the Band's Lawsuit

Anita “Lady A” White has responded to the lawsuit by Lady A, the band formerly known as Lady Antebellum.

In a new interview with Vulture, the Seattle-based blues singer had some tough words for the country group that had changed their name following the Black Lives Matter protests. Their former name was associated with the pre-slavery era and the members thought they’d done something positive without realizing that someone else may have had the name, which is one of the things that White called out.

“You don’t get to just come and take because you have that privilege,” she said. “We don’t have that luxury or that privilege, so we need somebody to help us and lift us up.”

She also had harsh words following her Zoom call with the group, which the group had posted “went well” and Vulture reports that there were even talks for the band and singer to record a song together. Instead, White accused the group of engaging in not-so-good-faith SEO practices that would push her name down in search results.

“The first contract they sent [on June 30] had no substance,” she said. “It said that we would coexist and that they would use their best efforts to assist me on social-media platforms, Amazon, iTunes, all that. But what does that mean? I had suggested on the Zoom call that they go by the Band Lady A, or Lady A the Band, and I could be Lady A the Artist, but they didn’t want to do that.”

A rep for Lady A the band did not immediately respond to SPIN’s request for comment.

In a suit filed in U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee in Nashville on Wednesday (July 8) , Lady A the band claims that White is attempting “to enforce purported trademarks rights in a mark that Plaintiffs have held for more than a decade,” and that she demanded $10 million for use of the name. White told Vulture that she planned on using the money to rebrand herself under a new name and to donate the remainder to charities that support Black artists.

Read the full interview with Vulture here.

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