Little Simz sues producer and SAULT member Inflo over withheld £1.7million loan

Little Simz has reportedly sued the producer and SAULT member Inflo over a £1.7million loan.

The UK rapper – real name Simbiatu Ajikawo – first filed the claim against her former producer in January. This saw her accuse him of withholding loans she had made to him for over a year, as well as claiming that he did not properly account for funds provided by Sony to cover recording costs.

According to Law360, the loans allegedly total £1.7million.

The producer’s real name is Dean Cover and he also helms the music collective SAULT.  He produced Simz’s 2019 release ‘GREY Area’, as well as 2021’s ‘Sometimes I Might Be Introvert’ and 2022’s ‘No Thank You’. The two also worked together when Simz was managed by an employee of his Forever Living Originals Ltd. company.

Outlets including Stereogum have shared that Inflo advised Simz to not continue working with Universal Music Publishing when her songwriter contract ended; instead, urging her to self-publish.

Following this, she signed with AWAL – the Artists Without A Label division of Sony – at the end of 2022 and received a total advice of £2million for three albums to be made, as well as £625,000 for recording costs of the third album.

She reportedly paid Inflo over £600,000 through a Forever Living Originals bank account before receiving the recording costs payment from AWAL.

In her lawsuit, Simz says that she held the belief that any funds not spent on recording costs would be returned once the album was done. Last October, Inflo’s solicitors allegedly produced the costs to cover the recording fees, but this amounted to just under £525,000.

Other instances where Simz lent Inflo money came in 2023 when she sent £1million to lock in the only SAULT show of the year, which was held at Drumsheds in London, and also in December of that year when she lent him £500,000 and then £200,000. The new filing claims that the condition for the Drumsheds gig was that he had to repay her by early December, but failed to do so.

Due to his alleged inability to pay Simz back, the rapper was unable to pay her tax liabilities in full and, therefore, received interest charges.

Inflo has not filed a defence to the claim at time of writing, although last October his legal team acknowledged the debut and suggested the fault lay at the hands of Forever Living Originals rather than Inflo personally.

This is a developing story.