Rick Astley Files Multi-Million Dollar Lawsuit Against Yung Gravy Over Never Gonna Give You Up Row

Rick Astley has filed a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against Yung Gravy, saying the rap artist was not authorized to use an imitation of his voice from 1987’s Never Gonna Give You Up for the 2022 single Betty (Get Money).

The English singer-songwriter, 56, filed legal documents in Los Angeles that were reviewed by TMZsaying that Yung Gravy and his team had only licensed the instruments of the pop classic.

Astley’s legal team told the court that the 26-year-old Rochester, Minnesota-born musical artist and his production team, including Dillon Francis, and impersonator Nick ‘Popnick’ Seeley, were not allowed to reproduce the vocals. of its success, which sparked the ‘Rick-Rolling phenomenon’.

The latest: Rick Astley, 56, has filed a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against Yung Gravy, 26, saying the rap artist had unauthorizedly imitated his vocals from 1987’s Never Gonna Give You Up for his single Betty (Get Money) .

The group “conspired to include a deliberate and nearly indistinguishable imitation of Mr. Astley’s voice throughout the song,” Astley’s legal team told the court.

Astley said that Yung Gravy cost him potentially lucrative future collaboration opportunities by using Never Gonna Give You Up as the basis for his 2022 track.

Astley in his lawsuit cited an interview that Yung Gravy, whose real name is Matthew Hauri, gave to Billboard in August in which he explained the process of how and why he ‘basically redid’ Astley’s voice for Betty (Get Money).

‘I always thought that sample would be sick to do something with. I just never thought it could be erased,” Yung Money said. “Someone who had partial ownership of the rights to the sample hit me like, ‘We fuck you, you should try it.’

Astley’s legal team told the court that the rapper and his team were not allowed to reproduce the vocals from his hit, sparking the online ‘Rick-Rolling’ phenomenon.

Astley told the court that Yung Gravy cost him potentially lucrative future collaboration opportunities by using Never Gonna Give You Up as the basis for his 2022 song.

He continued: ‘My boy Nick, who does a lot of sample repeats and recreates original samples, we basically redid the whole song. He had a different singer and instruments, but it was all very close because he makes it easier legally.

Never Gonna Give You Up was initially released by Astley in December 1987 and reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in March 1988.

Betty (Get Money) has been a hit single, reaching gold status in the US, Australia and Canada.