Kendrick Lamar has been shaken from his spot sitting atop the world thanks to a lawsuit which alleges he stole a sample in his track ‘I Do This’ from his 2013 Kendrick Lamar EP mixtape.
As Billboard reports, Lamar and his label, Top Dawg Music, are being sued for using a sample of the Bill Withers song ‘Don’t You Want To Stay’. You can check out both songs embedded below.
The suit was filed by Mattie Music Group, who supposedly own the rights to Withers’ 1975 composition, and their suit is actually kind of a hoot to read, because it reads like it was written by your out-of-touch elderly neighbour.
“The musical composition ‘I Do This’ consists of nothing more than new, so-called Rap or Hip Hop lyrics, set to the existing music of ‘Don’t Want You To Stay’,” the suit, as quoted by Billboard, reads.
“Plaintiffs are informed and believe that Defendant Lamar has openly admitted that his musical composition ‘I Do This’ copies the music of ‘Don’t Want You To Stay’ with a thumb to the nose, catch me if you can attitude.”
Mattie Music, who may or may not be in possession of all the balls we lost over the neighbour’s fence as children, are pursuing Lamar, Warner Bros. Music, TDE, Hard and Warner/ Chappell for damages.
It’s not the first time that Lamar has been served with papers in recent memory. Back in July, a freelance photographer sued the Compton rapper for using a photo without permission in the digital artwork for ‘The Blacker The Berry’.
Lamar also faced legal action in 2014 when Eric Woolfson of The Alan Parsons project accused the rapper of improperly sampling their song ‘Old and Wise’ on ‘Keisha’s Song (Her Pain)’ from Lamar’s 2011 album Section.80.
