Ghanaian artist Obrafour has filed a lawsuit in opposition to Drake, claiming that the celebrity rapper’s 2022 observe Calling My Identify featured an unauthorized pattern from one in all Obrafour’s personal works.
Fifty-three seconds into that observe, a vocalist will be heard saying “Killer lower, blood, killer lower.”
Within the lawsuit, filed Tuesday (April 18) with the US District Court docket for the southern district of New York, Obrafour alleges that this line was taken from a remix of his 2003 observe Oye Ohene.
The lawsuit, which you’ll be able to learn in full right here, seeks a minimal of USD $10 million in damages. It names an entire host of co-defendants, together with Drake’s document firm OVO, Republic Data, its proprietor, Common Music Group (UMG), and various affiliated firms.
Additionally named within the lawsuit are music producer Alex Lustig; DJ Diamante Blackmon (present stage identify GORDO, previously Carnage); songwriter and producer Johannes Klahr; and musician Beau Nox, all of whom are listed as producers or writers on Calling My Identify.
Within the grievance, Obrafour alleges that an agent representing Drake and the opposite defendants emailed him asking for permission to pattern the observe “mere days” earlier than Calling My Identify was launched final yr.
That e-mail went out on June 8, 2022, and the agent despatched a follow-up e-mail on June 13. Obrafour hadn’t but responded to those emails when Calling My Identify dropped on June 17, the grievance alleges.
Calling My Identify is the sixth observe on Drake’s Actually, Nevermind album, which was a shock launch final June, and debuted at No.1 on the US Billboard 200.
In keeping with the grievance, the album generated greater than 250 million streams in its first week alone. Calling My Identify itself has garnered greater than 47 million streams on Spotify and 4.1 million views on YouTube, the grievance alleges.
“The infringement by the Defendants has been, and continues to be, willful and realizing,” the grievance states.
On prime of the $10 million in damages, the lawsuit seeks earnings constructed from document gross sales, streams, stay performances and different sources of income linked to Calling My Identify. It additionally asks for compensation to cowl Obrafour’s authorized prices.
Obrafour is a Ghanaian rapper who has been described in Ghana’s native media as one of the vital well-liked figures on the native music scene. His musical style, hiplife, is a mix of hip-hop and conventional Ghanaian music.
Drake additionally made headlines this week after a tune known as coronary heart on my sleeve went viral that includes AI-generated Drake and AI-generated The Weeknd vocals
The observe was uploaded to YouTube and TikTok by its purported creator, who goes by the moniker ghostwriter.
Additionally by way of a third-party distributor, the observe efficiently made its strategy to streaming providers like Spotify, Apple Music, SoundCloud, Deezer and TIDAL, the place it started to rack up streams by the a whole lot of hundreds.
The AI ‘faux Drake’ observe was subsequently deleted from streaming platforms.Music Enterprise Worldwide