Kanye West sued over allegedly sampling 1970s song on ‘Donda 2’
A lawsuit has been filed against Kanye West over a song on his Donda 2 album. He has been accused of sampling a 1970s song without permission.
In legal documents filed in federal court on September 4th by The GRC Trust, on behalf of Ginn Music Group, claimed ‘Lord Lift Me Up’ includes a sample of the 1975 song ‘Just Out of My Reach’ by Sam Dees.
The complaint read, “At no point did defendants obtain authorisation from GRC to use the composition in connection with the infringing work. Defendants continue to exploit and receive monies from the infringing work, respectively, in violation of GRC’s rights in his composition.”
According to Billboard, the suit names West, Yeezy LLC and featured rapper Vory as part of the copyright infringement claims. Also named is Kano Computing and its founder, Alex Klein, who teamed up with Ye to release the album on the Stem Player.
GRC requests “all profits of defendants … plus all losses of GRC, plus any other monetary advantage gained by the defendants through their infringement.”
His 11th studio album, Donda 2, was officially released on streaming platforms in June, following its initial 2022 release. It featured Travis Scott, Future, Playboi Carti, XXXTentacion, Migos, Soulja Boy, The Game, and more.
Kanye was previously sued over Donda 2 in 2022. Through Ultra International, Marshall Jefferson hit Ye with a lawsuit over the song ‘Flowers’, claiming he sampled his 1986 track ‘Move Your Body’ without his say-so.
“I’ve been sampled thousands of times,” he told BBC Radio 1. “There is a right way and a wrong way to go about it. Getting done by another artist, a Black artist, a fellow Chicagoan without acknowledgement is disappointing.”