Kanye West is being sued for sampling a song without permission from a famed house musician on Donda 2.
The rapper is accused of borrowing at least 22 times from Marshall Jefferson’s 1986 smash Move Your Body for his song Flowers.
Wednesday, Ultra International Music Publishing filed a complaint with the US District Court in New York.
Kanye and his label have been silent over the lawsuit.
Last weekend, house music pioneer Jefferson from Kanye’s hometown of Chicago performed at Glastonbury.
His song Move Your Body reached No. 34 on Billboard’s Dance Singles Sales list in 1986, when it was published by Trax Records.
“I have been sampled countless times. There are proper and improper ways to proceed “He reports to Radio 1 Newsbeat.
“It is disappointing when the work of another artist, a black artist, or a fellow Chicagoan goes unacknowledged.”
In conversations with Jefferson’s representatives, Kanye and his crew admitted sampling Move Your Body in Flowers, according to the lawsuit.
However, it is asserted that the rapper did not acquire a license, which would have meant Jefferson was compensated for utilizing his song.
On the one hand, West supports artists’ rights, while on the other, he has no qualms about robbing another artist of his rights.
Flowers is reportedly about Kanye’s ex-wife Kim Kardashian, whose petition to break their marriage was granted in March, according to the lawsuit.
A lawyer for Ultra International, which owns the rights to Jefferson’s song, stated that the complaint spoke for itself and that they had nothing to say.
They are seeking a trial to determine profits and damages, or maximum statutory damages of $150,000 per infringement.
Kanye, whose legal name is now Ye, released Donda 2 exclusively through his Stem Player, a portable gadget that enables users to extract and recombine song portions, in February.
The lawsuit states that he claimed to have earned $2.2 million (£1.8 million) in one day from Stem Player sales.
The British business Kano Computing Ltd, which co-developed the device with Kanye and is also included in the case, has not spoken publicly on the matter.
Kanye’s agents and his label, Universal Music Group, which is not implicated in the lawsuit, have likewise remained silent.
A Texas preacher named David Paul Moten sued the rapper in May for allegedly copying one of his sermons without permission.
In the past, he was also sued over samples used on the Yeezus songs New Slaves and Bound 2, but both cases were settled out of court.
