Creditors Rap Deadbeat "Source"

APRIL 14--The Source magazine might want to consider calling off its feud with Eminem and asking the rap star if he could float them a loan. Because the supposed "hip hop Bible" has recently been hit with four lawsuits claiming that the monthly has not paid its bills. The complaints, filed over the last six weeks in New York State Supreme Court, seek a total of $1.35 million, with the majority of that tab--$1.1 million--owed to a New York paper merchant. A Manhattan lithographer has sued for $30,000. A Fifth Avenue jeweler wants $36,000, claiming that a pricey pair of earrings went missing after a 2003 photo shoot. And The Source's travel agent wants $142,000. In its complaint, an excerpt of which you'll find below, Tzell Travel claims The Source's owners, David Mays and Raymond "Benzino" Scott, never paid for hundreds of airline tickets purchased since last August. Included in the lawsuit is a detailed printout of those tickets, showing that The Source paid travel costs for rap producers Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo as well as executives with Murder Inc., the controversial rap label. And then there's the first-class fares for Mays's parents and tickets for Scott's relatives. (6 pages)