Online Reporter
Grammy-winning producer Black Coffee is at the centre of a high-stakes legal battle after his company, Soulistic Music, secured a R7 million court judgment against luxury carmaker Maserati – and is now moving to attach its movable assets. Maserati has fired back with an urgent Joburg High Court application, with a hearing scheduled for 8 September 2026.
How the deal fell apart The dispute traces back to November 2024, when Black Coffee traded in his vehicle valued at R7 million as part of a deal to acquire a custom-built Maserati MC20 Cielo, with an additional R2 million due on delivery.
Maserati, operating through Casa Vehicle Holdings, says delays in confirming the bespoke specifications gradually soured the arrangement.
By June 2025, Soulistic Music had had enough. The company cancelled the agreement outright and demanded its R7 million trade-in value back in full. The matter eventually landed in court, and on 3 August 2026, a judge granted an unopposed summary judgment in favour of Soulistic Music for the full R7 million.
Africa Daily reports that the carmaker’s explanation for missing the August hearing centres on a chaotic change of legal representation. Its former attorneys, ENS Africa, withdrew from the matter on 8 July 2026, citing unpaid legal fees.
Maserati says its new lawyers were only formally appointed on 31 July, leaving them with almost no time to mount a defence before the hearing. Beyond the procedural issue, Maserati insists the underlying claim was invalid at the time of the August judgment.
According to the carmaker, the two parties had already reached a binding settlement in April 2026, under which Soulistic agreed to accept monthly payments of R1.09 million. Maserati argues that Soulistic’s decision to push ahead with the original R7 million claim, despite that agreement, was improper.
The carmaker also disputes that it ever breached the original contract, pointing to delays caused by the approval process for the vehicle’s custom specifications and what it describes as a failure by Soulistic to issue a proper breach notice.
To demonstrate good faith and persuade the court to halt enforcement of the judgment while a rescission trial is pending, Maserati has offered to restart monthly payments of R1.09 million from 30 September 2026.
The carmaker warns that allowing asset attachment to proceed would cause it irreparable harm, while Soulistic Music, it argues, would suffer no meaningful prejudice from a delay – BrieflySA.
