C.L. Smooth is heading to federal court after discovering that decades of his royalty payments got rerouted to an Elmsford couple’s bank accounts without his knowledge.
The Mount Vernon rapper filed suit against Nickolas and Nichelle Taylor, claiming they orchestrated a scheme to intercept $132,000 in performance royalties that belonged to him.
According to Westfair Communications, the Taylors set up a fraudulent SoundExchange account in his name and systematically collected payments that should’ve gone straight to him.
The relationship between C.L. Smooth and Nickolas Taylor goes back to 1989 when they were both moving through New York’s music scene.
By 2001, Taylor started booking shows for the rapper, but there was never a formal contract, just a handshake agreement built on years of trust.
C.L. Smooth even handed over his passport and other sensitive personal information for international tour dates. That trust shattered around 2007 as financial disputes piled up, especially after Taylor launched St. Nick Entertainment Inc. in 2006.
The real damage came from a SoundExchange account that someone had already created in C.L. Smooth’s name, with all payments directed to addresses the Taylors controlled.
The rapper didn’t find out about any of this until March 2026, when he tried to set up his own SoundExchange account and discovered one already existed under his name.
An investigation pulled back the curtain on the whole operation, revealing that royalty checks dating back to early 2006 had been sent to the Taylors’ Elmsford home and other addresses in Pleasantville and Yonkers.
The checks were made out to C.L. Smooth, but Nichelle Taylor endorsed them and deposited them into accounts she and her husband controlled.
The lawsuit names both Taylors individually and their businesses, including Taylor Your Care, a home care staffing operation.
C.L. Smooth is going after them for fraud, conversion, breach of fiduciary duty, and unjust enrichment, demanding they return every penny they stole plus unspecified punitive damages.
Since taking control of his SoundExchange account, he’s recovered about $30,000 in royalties from 2023 through 2026, but the majority of the $132,000 remains tied up in the legal battle.
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