Jay-Z is entitled to over $4.5 million in royalty claims against a perfume company that dragged him to trial last year, an appellate court ruled Thursday.

Perfume company Parlux filed a $68 million lawsuit against the “Empire State of Mind” rapper in 2016 accusing him of failing to uphold his end of a 2012 contract to promote his eponymous fragrance – Gold Jay Z.

— Read more in Jay-Z entitled to over $4.5 million in royalties in perfume dispute lawsuit at Page Six.

Mr. Carter testified he never bothered to look at the products or smell the products. What does this tell you? It tells you ... it was all baloney.

— That's Parlux’s attorney Anthony Viola, providing one last juicy nugget from the Parlux vs Shawn Carter lawsuit, which ended yesterday in a lose for everybody (Parlux lost their suit for $67 million in damages and Jay-Z lost his $6 million countersuit). Read more in NYC jury clears Jay-Z in breach of contract suit brought by perfume company at Daily News, or see Jury Clears Jay-Z In $68M Cologne Contract Case at Law360.

The rap mogul recalled the moment he learned his cologne, Gold Jay Z, hit the shelves of a Superdrug, a UK-based drugstore. “It’s crappy, lazy work,” the “99 Problems” rapper testified during his second day on the witness stand in perfume company Parlux’s lawsuit against him. [...]

In an email shown to the jury, the rapper also ripped a commercial that Parlux made for the fragrance, which depicted liquid gold being dripped on a woman’s body, as “B rate.” “Pretty much like all of their ideas — lazy,” he testified of the commercial.

— Jay-Z testified for a second day in Parlux vs Shawn Carter. Read more in Jay-Z calls perfume company’s work ‘lazy,’ ‘crappy’ at contract trial at New York Post.

Carter almost seemed to enjoy a moment, mid-afternoon, when Viola read aloud a 2014 email in which the rapper had written that “the partners” on the perfume release “suck.” The star was quick to tell the court (twice) that “the partners” referred to Parlux. “I wanted great products and these guys didn’t understand,” the star added. “It was so frustrating working with them.”

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Adding insult to alleged injury, the fragrance company said the rapper rejected a design for a Gold Jay-Z bottle with an 18-karat gold exterior that was worth over $20,000, but that he pocketed the prototype.

— Parlux vs Shawn Carter gets going. Read more in Jay-Z Testifies in Perfume Lawsuit: ‘You Have Me on Trial for Something I Didn’t Do’ at Rolling Stone.