Thug Life Army

An article that appeared in the New York Post last week referred to rap artist, actress, cover girl and hip-hop legend Queen Latifah as a "deadbeat tennant." She has been accused of dodging bills for several local recording studios.

She is a co-owner in the company Flavor Unit, which has come under scrutiny for not paying their bills.

Stewart Levy, the attorney for Flavor Unit, has said, "She's an owner, but does not operate the company on a day-to-day basis."

Mark Nixdorf, a sound-engineer, was owed $1,680 for recording work. "I think she ought to know what's going on," he said.

Another sound-engineer, Arthur Steur, was owed $3,920. He commented, "I''m not a huge company, three or four thousand dollars to me is a lot of money."

It took four months and a lot of phone calls, but both engineers finally received the money they were owed.

Doug Pell, owner of Giant Recording Studios is still negotiating the amount that he is owed by Flavor Unit. In 1993 Queen Latifah recorded "Black Reign," an album that went gold and also garnered a Grammy for one of its songs. Pell was never compensated for the recording fees by Flavor Unit.

"I approached Queen Latifah and said you just can''t keep coming here and not paying your bills, and they (Flavor Unit) said well if that's the way you feel about it we''re going to go somewhere else."

Pell recently won a court judgement against the company. "She didn''t start out with a lot of money," he said, "she came up the hard way and it's surprising for me to see that she would treat people that way. It's shameful."

A New Jersey Millenium Recording Studio reportedly operated by one of Queen Latifah's company owes $78,402.58 in back rent.

Several people that were owed money have been paid since the story was broken by CBS 2's Arnold Diaz in February.