Chris Brown accused of cutting songwriter out of royalties
A lawsuit has been filed against Chris Brown, alleging he used lyrics from a songwriter without giving credit.
Steve Chokpelle sued the singer in Manhattan federal court on February 4th over his two songs, ‘Monalisa’ and ‘Sensational’.
‘Monalisa’ was released on June 4th, 2021, while ‘Sensational’ arrived in 2024. Chokpelle claims he was asked to write lyrics for ‘Monalisa’ at Brown’s home in Los Angeles in 2020, where Sean Kingston was present.
According to Rolling Stone, he also alleges that he wrote the lyrics for ‘Sensational’ in 2021, with Brown hearing a demo version and using it for himself.
Chokpelle says that Brown recorded, mixed, and mastered his own version featuring Lojay, appearing on his 2023 album 11:11. He claims he didn’t receive any compensation, despite the lawsuit saying the song made over $1 million.
The lawsuit, filed by Chokpelle and his lawyer, Simon J Rosen, read, “Defendants sustained a tremendous benefit, and shall continue to receive tremendous benefit, by earnings millions in revenues, acclaim, accolades, and goodwill, from the commercial exploitation of ‘Monalisa’ and ‘Sensational’.”
It continued, “Chokpelle is entitled to a full, discrete accounting of all revenues earned by [Brown] from the commercial exploitation of the subject songs, from inception through current, and ongoing into the future.”
Chokpelle is seeking damages from Brown, Kingston, Sony Music Entertainment, and Universal Music Publishing Group. He’s also asking to be named an author and copyright owner of the two songs.
‘Monalisa’ has over 256 million Spotify streams, with ‘Sensational’ also boasting 144 million streams on the platform
The album it appeared on, 11:11, debuted at number nine on the Billboard 200 chart with 45,000 units in its first week.