Listen Live
97.9 The Beat Featured Video
CLOSE

R&B singer Usher is reportedly going through the same legal drama as his “Hot Tottie” collaborator Jay Z after being sued over his 2002 anthem, “Caught Up.”

//

 

According to reports, Usher and his label are accused of copyright infringement.

Three men have filed suit against Usher and his record label Arista. They claim that they played their demo version of “Caught Up” to a label higher-up and never got a call back. Imagine the group’s surprise when they heard Usher’s version of the track skyrocketing up the Billboard charts two years later. The group are suing for unspecified damages. (MStarz)

No stranger to legal drama, the R&B hitmaker went through a similar experience earlier this year.

Earlier this year, Usher got called out on some similar behavior (though this time the alleged infringement benefitted his protege Justin Bieber). R&B singer De Rico accused Usher of stealing his song “Somebody to Love” and re-recording it with Justin Bieber. De Rico was seeking $10 million in damages and the case has yet to be settled. Does this not sound like the Usher you know and love? Are you starting to question his music past? Why does he keep getting ‘caught up’ in these disputes? (MStarz)

Details of rap star Jay Z’s potentially hefty lawsuit bubbled across the Internet this week.

Jay Z is being sued for allegedly sampling Eddie Bo‘s 1969 single Hook and Sling – Part 1 without permission. TufAmerica, the label representing Bo, claims that the sample appears in Jay Z’s 2009 single Run This Town, which also featured Rihanna and co-producer Kanye West. The track featured on Jay Z’s 11th album, The Blueprint 3, and was a No 1 single in the UK. TufAmerica, who have owned the rights to the track since 1996, are seeking proceeds from Run This Town, damages and a court order to halt “further distribution and exploitation” of the song. Bo was a New Orleans pianist whose records incorporated jazz, blues, funk and soul. He died in 2009. The lawsuit, filed in New York, names Jay Z, his label Roc-A-Fella Records and several other companies as defendants. (The Guardian)

Reports claim the label has previously gone after “Run This Town” collaborator Kanye West.

The label has a history of filing sample-related lawsuits. Last year, it sued West for using a sample from the same song on his 2010 record My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. “Hook & Sling Part 1” allegedly makes appearances in that album’s “Lost in the World” and “Who Will Survive in America?” as well as West’s “Runaway” clip, according to Pitchfork. At the time, TufAmerica claimed that although West’s labels paid a licensing fee, they “failed and refused to enter into written license agreements that accounted for their multiple other uses of [‘Hook and Sling’].” (Rolling Stone)

Check out Usher’s “Caught Up” music video: