Fat Joe’s legal battle over who owns his 2016 anthem, “All The Way Up,” has just gotten much juicier. A judge has ruled that songwriter Eric “Fly Havana” Elliott’s copyright claims carry enough weight to allow the case to continue, meaning the multi-platinum hit remains to be debated.
The feud, which has unfolded since 2019, revolves around whether Fly Havana was adequately credited and paid for his contribution to the song’s creation. Elliott says he and the producer Shandel “Infrared” Green wrote the basic contours of the track in a marathon Miami studio stint at the end of 2015. He says he wrote key lyrics, helped craft the melody, and even came up with the now-famous hook. But when the song was released commercially in March 2016, his name was nowhere in the credits and, vitally, nowhere in the royalty checks.
At the end of the controversy is a curious gathering at a Miami Beach IHOP, where Fat Joe reportedly slid Fly Havana a $5,000 check marked “write” and then had him sign what’s been characterized as a “piece of paper.” That document has disappeared, creating a critical gap in the case. Did they get an all-rights transfer? A vague acknowledgment? Without a contract, the legal dispute relies on witness testimony, prevailing standards in the industry, and copyright law.
Fat Joe and his co-defendants French Montana, Remy Ma, Warner Chappell Music, Universal Music Group, and Rock Nation have repeatedly maintained that Fly Havana has no legal basis for its song claim. They add that even if what he says is true, he doesn’t meet the definition of a co-author under copyright law.
A lower court initially rejected Elliott’s claims because the contract was missing, but the Second Circuit Court of Appeals reversed that decision in 2022, breathing new life into the lawsuit. Now, as Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald has left copyright claims intact while throwing out state law accusations of fraud and negligence, the case is headed toward discovery. That means both sides will have to excavate into email, text, contract, and any other evidence that might be relevant to (or refute) Fly Havana’s claim to authorship.
With “Up” going triple platinum, garnering Grammy nominations, and even getting remixed by Jay-Z, the financial stakes have never been higher. If Fly Havana is credited as a co-writer, he may be entitled to a substantial portion of the song’s royalties, a sum that could be in the millions.
This next phase of the lawsuit will increasingly focus on the missing IHOP contract and Fat Joe’s payment to Fly Havana. If the document surfaces, it may strengthen or undermine Elliott’s claim. But for now, the fight over one of the biggest songs of the 2010s continues, evidence that the paperwork is as crucial as the hits in the music business.
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