Copyright lawsuits aren't all that common in the world of hip-hop. Rappers don't tend to hear songs and say "Wait, this track is all about guns and bitches. But I've got a track about guns and bitches too, the copying bastards."
But hip-hop copyright lawsuits do happen. And one is happening now, in fact – New Jersey group IOF claim that Kanye West and Ludacris ripped off one of their songs and turned it into Stand Up, a hit from three years ago. Thank god we're not on the jury, all this young people's music is all bang bang bang to us. We didn't even know if David Bowie was a boy or a girl until someone told us last week.
Trouble always seems to follow Kanye West around. If people aren't getting shot at Kanye West concerts, then Kanye West is bigging-up his porno collection while dressed up as Jesus on the cover of a magazine. Ludacris doesn't have it easy, either; after wanting to break into gormless action films like Ice Cube, he ended up starring in the Oscar-winning blubathon Crash. And now, to add to the troubles of Kanye West and Ludacris, a New Jersey rap outfit is claiming that the pair ripped off one of their songs.
IOF claim that Kanye and Ludacris lifted lyrics and beats from their song Straight Like That and turned it into 500,000 selling hit Stand Up. At the heart of the case is the phrase "like that" which appears in both songs more than 80 times. In the IOF tune, the full phrase is "straight like that," but the Ludacris/Kanye West song features the line "just like that." That's a full 33.3% different.
In court, both Straight Like That and Stand Up were played to the jury and, although reports claim that the jury busted out a few bitchin' head nods to the Ludacris track, no kind of funky-ass jury getting down was mentioned while the IOF track was spun. And lawyer for the defendants, Christine Lepera, pointed out that neither song was exactly cupping edge:
"There are scores of songs out there with the words 'like that' with that type of rhythm. None of you can monopolise certain expressions."
Then she played the songs and clapped her hands along to them to show that the beat wasn't all that elaborate, telling the jury:
"Do you think your three-year-old can do that?"
Mel Sachs, the IOF lawyer, claimed that promotional copies of Straight Like That were sent to Ludacris' record label, saying that IOF:
"put a lot of time and effort into doing this song and then it was taken away from them."
Both Ludacris and Kanye West are expected to testify at the trial at some point, but whether or not Kanye arrives flanked by 50 gold-painted women again remains to be seen.
Read more:
Hip Hop Stars In Copyright Case – BBC
[story by Stuart Heritage]