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Afroman Dogs Impersonator
Legal eagles for rapper
Afroman – whose real name is Joseph Foreman – and his law firm, Jay M. Coggan & Associates, have given Dol Ré until March 5th to stop using the name “Afroman” or identifying himself as the creator of the popular single “Because I Got High.”
“I was blown out of the water; I didn’t know what to do,” Foreman told Pollstar. “I started trying to seek advice and started calling around to see what I could do.”
The rapper first heard of the impersonator while doing radio interviews at an awards show last year. During one interview, a confused disc jockey asked the rapper, “You’re Afroman?”
“They were shocked,” publicist Jonathan Wolfson told Pollstar. “They were like, ‘We just did a show for you like a month ago at such-and-such venue.’
“We investigated it and there were a lot of venues around the country where [Dol Ré] was impersonating Afroman.”
Apparently, the impersonations were not tribute performances. According to Foreman, Dol Ré would sing several of his own songs and then do a version of “Because I Got High.”
“The bottom line is that he’s taking advantage of people’s ignorance about what I look like,” Foreman said. “I was big overseas and I was big on the radio [in the U.S.] but I don’t think people can really put my song to my face. And he was taking advantage of that.”
Wolfson fears the alleged impersonations could negatively affect Afroman’s name and the reputation of his live show.
“It’s nonsense,” Wolfson said. “This is [Afroman’s] bread and butter to go out and tour. Plus, it’s a blemish on his reputation because Afroman really does provide an incredible live show.
“He gets up there with a double-neck guitar, he’s got a full band. … Not many rappers can get up there and jam like that.”
There could, however, be a plus side to all this. The imposter’s performances have caused record sales for Afroman to rise in unexpected cities, Foreman said.
“It’s good and bad in a crazy way,” he explained. “He would go and perform in some place that I would never go … and SoundScan would come in, and record sales would be up in those places. In this crazy backwards way, him impersonating me and doing all that brought my name to people’s mouth.”
The real Afroman was scheduled to kick off a North American tour January 19th.