Kanye West has sued to sample Marshall Jefferson dance hits since 1986

Legendary house musician Marshall Jefferson has sued Kanye West for sampling the 1986 hit “Move Your Body” without permission.

He claims that some of his songs have been used at least 22 times on Kanye’s track “Flowers”. Donda 2.

On Wednesday, Jefferson’s publisher, Ultra International Music Publishing, filed a complaint in the US District Court in New York.

Read more: Kanye West won the Lifetime Achievement Award for a surprise appearance at the 2022 BET Awards

“I’ve been sampled thousands of times. There’s the right way and the wrong way,” 62-year-old Jefferson told Radio 1 Newsbeat. “It’s a shame to get it done without being recognized by another artist, a black artist, or a fellow Chicago artist.”

The proceedings state that Kanye and his team had previously granted sampling while talking to Jefferson’s representative. However, it claims that the wrapper did not get a license. This means that Jefferson was paid for using his dance single.

“The West defends the rights of artists with one hand, but it is not shameful to deprive other artists of their rights with the other,” the legal document reports.

Read more: Kanye West’s fourth lawyer resigns from Kim Kardashian’s divorce case

Ultra International lawyers, who own Jefferson’s song rights, say music publishers are demanding profits and damages determined by a $ 150,000 trial or statutory damages for each infringement.

This document states only one day after Kanye was released. Donda 2, He earned $ 2.2 million from Stem Player sales. This is the album’s “handheld device that allows users to separate and rejoin song parts.” Released exclusively.

Read more: Kim Kardashian reacts ironically to Kanye West’s rap song: “Very Classy”

Kanocomputing, a British company that helped Kanye develop players, was also mentioned in the proceedings, but has not yet commented on the allegations.

Kanye’s representative and his label, Universal Music Group, haven’t been named in the documentation, but haven’t commented yet.

In May, the 45-year-old Archetypal Old West was accused by Texas minister David Paul Moten of sampling one of his sermons without permission. Kanye has been sued in two more samples in the past, including the one used on his tracks “New Slaves” and “Bound 2”. Both were settled out of court.