Who doesn’t know Diddley?
Nike, that’s who, as legendary guitarman Bo Diddley says in a suit filed in Manhattan federal court.
Diddley says the sneaker company didn’t give him squat after selling thousands of T-shirts with his image and the catch phrase “You Don’t Know Diddley.”
The line was originally used in a popular 1989 Nike ad campaign, in which Bo Jackson, the pro baseball and football player, was told: “You Don’t Know Diddley.”
The musician was paid for the original campaign, but says the sneaky company started selling the shirts again last year – without giving him a cut.
“This is a clear case of the big bully picking on the little guy,” said Margo Lewis, president of Diddley’s management company.
Senior Nike official Vada Manager said yesterday afternoon that both sides were working out a deal and that the company had offered Diddley between $10,000 and $15,000 in royalties.
“That is absolutely false,” fumed Diddley’s lawyer, John Rosenberg. “I’ve never negotiated in the press before, but you can communicate back to them that we find this proposal entirely unacceptable.”
Rosenberg said there had been a brief settlement discussion in March, but it ended quickly when Nike refused to cough up a larger amount of money.
The company has made more than $200,000 selling the new batch of T-shirts, Rosenberg said.
Diddley, 71, a blues icon for the past 45 years, filed the suit late Wednesday under his real name, Ellas McDaniel.
“I’m sorry that it’s come to this, but what’s right is right,” Diddley said in a statement.
The suit seeks at least $500,000 in damages.
In the papers, Diddley claims Nike approached him in 1999 and talked about a new marketing deal. But when the two sides couldn’t agree on royalties, Nike walked away, the suit says.
Months later, Diddley discovered that Web sites and other retailers were selling the shirts, and had hawked far more than had originally been discussed.