A year ago, popular country music group Lady Antebellum opted to change their name and distance themselves from its roots to America’s pre-Civil War period, when slavery ran rampant. The Nashville-based group settled on Lady A, a shortened version of the name that would still allow fans to recognize them. The only issue is that the name was already taken by Angela “Lady A” White, a blues singer in Seattle who had been performing under the name for decades.
This led to both a public and legal dispute over who had rights to the “Lady A” name. According to Rolling Stone, following the group’s name change announcement in June 2020, they decided to file a lawsuit against White, hoping to obtain verification of the right to use the name along with White. Though the group trademarked the name, White felt that she had rights under common law ownership, as she had been performing as “Lady A” for nearly 30 years, Rolling Stone reported.
A countersuit was then filed by White, where it was decided that she couldn’t have the country group’s suit dismissed.
The court denied Anita ‘Lady A’ White’s request to dismiss the band’s suit, and proceedings will begin in Tennessee if the two parties cannot settle by next year. https://t.co/rFLsfTG3Md pic.twitter.com/nOqkRMCZSu
— Rolling Stone (@RollingStone) June 11, 2021
White sat down with Rolling Stone this month to discuss her life and career since the name dispute, telling the popular music magazine that she feels pushed to the side in all of the drama.
“They get to make their music, tour as ‘Lady A’ and get to continue to use that name without any regard to hurting my brand. I said it was going to happen and now I feel myself getting erased,” White said, adding that a simple name change from the group could have resolved the issue and presented “real justice.”
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Highlighting the general erasure of Black people in America that has been commonplace for centuries, White continued, “And that is something that this country is good at doing: Erasing black folks and disenfranchised people they feel do not matter. I think that [the band] thinks I’m irrelevant, and that is a mistake.”
“Just because I don’t have the same amount of fans that they have does not discount the fans I do have. It does not discount the hard work that I put in over all these years,” the veteran blues singer added.
According to Rolling Stone, if both parties cannot come to an agreement on the “Lady A” name by 2022, then court proceedings on the matter will continue in Tennessee.
