Kanye West loves a good sample, but now, the artist and producer is being sued for the unapproved use of a track.
On Wednesday (June 29), a U.S. District Court in New York received a claim stating that West’s Donda 2 album included an unauthorized sample of a song by Chicago House musician Marshall Jefferson. It is alleged that the Chi-town home hero used Jefferson’s 1986 hit “Move Your Body” on the track “Flowers” without proper compensation.
The complaint was filed through Ultra International Music Publishing (UIMP), which houses Jefferson’s catalog. The company also alleges that West was aware of his unlicensed sampling of “The House Music Anthem.” The claim states that Ye “continued to willfully infringe in blatant disregard of UIMP’s rights of ownership.” The document also included Kanye’s stem player co-creator Alex Klein, who helped build the layout for the inventive music device used in Donda 2‘s exclusive release. The album, named after West’s late mother, has yet to be made available on Spotify, Apple Music, or YouTube.
Jefferson’s publishing company is pursuing compensation for damages, a cease in distribution, and a trial by jury.
Kanye West was also sued in May by a pastor named Bishop David Paul Moten for sampling a speech of his on Donda’s “Come To Life.” Similarly, Ye was sued in 2019 for the use of a young girl’s voice on The Life of Pablo‘s “Ultralight Beam.”
