Rick Ross Sued Over Teflon Don Moniker

Rick Ross is the target of a new copyright infringement lawsuit over the rights to his Teflon Don moniker and album name. Donald Askey Jr., a rapper who also goes by the name Teflon Don, has filed the suit against Ross as well as DJ Khaled, Def Jam Recordings, Universal Music Group, Slip-N-Slide Records and Maybach Music Group for "trademark infringement, common-law trademark rights, trademark delusion, unfair competition, tortious interference and fraud and identity theft," according to MemphisRap.com.

Askey claims that Khaled and others were past business partners and were aware of his use of the Teflon Don name before it was attached to Rick Ross.

"On the song 'I Represent' DJ Khaled can be heard saying, 'To My Homie Teflon Don, we the best,'... all these cats knew about me," he said of Khaled's 2007 song from Coast 2 Coast Mixtape Vol. 10.

Since Ross has taken the name and used it as the title to his successful 2010 album, Teflon Don, Askey says his career has flatlined.

"I'm building a name, I'm building a brand and for someone to come with an album and an alias the name ‘Teflon Don’ and they have big budgets to put behind it, it blocks me from progressing. I was climbing the ladder and it feels like I went straight downhill and I don't feel like that's fair," he said.

The aggrieved emcee also takes issue with the "negative" message that Ross has associated with the Teflon Don name.

"It is almost belittling to me because the music he [Rick Ross] puts out is almost demeaning and the music that I put out is more positive," Askey said. "We have two different crowds and it is making me lose clientele based on the fact that they think that I am a negative rapper. So when they hear that Teflon Don wants to perform at a certain place sometimes they think negative and that was not the brand that I was building all these years."

Last year Rick Ross was sued by the famed drug dealer Ricky "Freeway" Ross for profiting off his name. The rapper was forced to settle out of court.

(Photo: Mark Davis/PictureGroup)