Kanye West sued over unauthorised sample on 'Donda 2' track

Rapper Kanye West has been sued over an unauthorised sample that’s used on his track ‘Flowers’, which appears on his new album Donda 2. 

Per a report in Billboard, a complaint was lodged in a New York federal court on Wednesday, by Ultra International Music Publishing (UIMP), the publisher of Marshall Jefferson. 

The suit claims that Kanye sampled Jefferson’s 1986 house cut ‘Move Your Body’ on ‘Flowers’ without gaining permission or giving the artist any form of compensation. The publisher also claims that the sample is “repeated at least 22 times” throughout West’s track.

The suit maintains that West acknowledged both to Jefferson and UIMP that he had sampled the track without gaining permission.“Despite this acknowledgement, West has not ceased distribution of ‘Flowers.’ Defendants’ conduct is willful and deliberate,” the filing says.

“Defendants know and have been informed that they do not possess a license to utilize the Composition in the Unauthorized Work, and yet continue to willfully infringe in blatant disregard of UIMP’s rights of ownership.”

UIMP want West to halt distribution of ‘Flowers’, and for profits and damages to be determined at a trial, or, receive the maximum statutory damages of $150,000 per infringement, as well as legal fees and other costs associated with bringing the suit forward covered. 

Interviewed by Billboard, Jefferson said that his music has “been sampled thousands of times”, but there was “a right way and a wrong way to go about it”. He then expressed his disappointment that West, who is a Black artist” and “a fellow Chicagoan”, sampled his work without permission. 

This isn’t the only time Kanye has found himself in hot water over unauthorised samples. As recently as May, the Texan Bishop David Paul Moten sued him, claiming that he sampled one of his sermons without permission on ‘Come to Life’ from Donda.