CHARLESTON – The musician behind “Rich Men North of Richmond” is a key part of a West Virginia civil lawsuit about a soured business relationship.
RadioWV LLC filed its complaint last month in Kanawha Circuit Court against John D. Price and Price Hill Records LLC doing business as Appalachia Untold. Draven A. Riffe is the sole member of RadioWV, according to the complaint.
Singer Oliver Anthony isn’t a party in the lawsuit, but the success he's had since his video for his “Rich Men” song went viral plays a significant role in it.
In 2016, Riffe started a men’s grooming products company called Burly Boy. In 2018, he says he began an online sponsorship-marketing effort to create video for West Virginia musicians. He decided to create YouTube, Instagram and Facebook pages for this project he called radiowv.
In 2019, Riffe says he and his Burly Boy business partner established RadioAppalachia LLC and claimed the tradenames radiowv and AppalachiaRadio. The complaint says Price never was a member of RadioAppalachia.
But Riffe did enter into an agreement with Price where they worked together and separately to record videos under the radiowv banner, edit them and post them on the radiowv social media pages. Soon, Riffe says he severed the arrangement with his Burly Boy partner, who retained the Burly Boy business operations while Riffe took sole control of radiowv.
Riffe says he came to an agreement with Price to work together producing music videos and each would be compensated on a 50-50 basis of all advertising revenues. Eventually, Riffe says radiowv began seeing “tremendous success” with some videos gaining hundreds of thousands to millions of views and launching several new music careers, including Anthony. Riffe is Anthony’ co-manager.
The video for Anthony’s “Rich Men” song “was recorded and produced solely by Riffe on August 8, 2023, and has received more than 80 million views on YouTube. The song also reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart for two consecutive weeks.
But that was after Riffe says Price took action in April 2023 to deny Riffe access to radiowv by changing the passwords to radiowv’s social media and email accounts that were created by Riffe, according to the complaint. He says Price also removed Riffe’s credential from the accounts “effectively locking Riffe out of those accounts.”
On May 4, Riffe filed a complaint for preliminary injunctive and other relief against Price in Kanawha Circuit Court alleging breach of contract, breach of duty, conversion, defamation, slander of title, tortious interference and unjust enrichment. There was a mediation on June 6, and the sides reached a settlement agreement. As part of that agreement, Price, Riffe and RadioWV LLC agreed to dissolve their general partnership in radiowv.
In addition to other financial issues, the agreement also said RadioWV LLC is solely owned by Riffe, and it says Price would deliver all physical assets such as microphones, SD cards, digital storage devices, video and audio clips purchased by Riffe for the partnership. It also said the partiers would not disparage each other.
But Riffe says Price created Appalachia Untold social media profiles to compete against radiowv. A few days before the mediation, Riffe says Price shared and promoted his new competing business on radiowv’s social media accounts.
The lawsuit also mentions an agreement with 16-year-old singer Jake Kohn that Price allegedly violated when he posted radiowv’s video of him singing an original song on the Appalachia Untold social media pages. It has more than 8 million views on those social media pages.
Riffe says he had “every intention” of creating a production-worthy video for Kohn’s song titled “Dreams” when the time was best for both radiowv and Kohn. He expected to do so in early fall to give radiowv “another likely surge after the successes of ‘Rich Men North of Richmond’” and would have helped put Kohn in a position to be radiowv’s next “star.”
In addition to retaining and posting the Kohn video, Riffe claims Price also has breached the settlement agreement by discussing and misstating the terms of the agreement with others.
Riffe, through RadioWV, accuses the defendants of breach of contract, unjust enrichment, conversion, tortious interference and slander. He seeks expectancy damages for the amount of advertising revenue and royalties Riffe and RadioWV would have gained had Price not breached the settlement agreement as well as expectancy damages for the value of the followers, views and engagement RadioWV would have gained.
He also seeks compensatory, consequential and punitive damages as well as attorney fees, court costs and other relief.
RadioWV is being represented by Jonathon Stanley, Kent George and Mary Williams of Robinson & McElwee in Charleston. They did not return messages seeking comment. The case has been assigned to Circuit Judge Carrie Webster.
Kanawha Circuit Court case number 23-C-916