Drake is being sued for $10 million by a Ghanaian rapper who alleges that the chart-topper stole one of his songs and used it in his own 2022 song Calling My Name without permission.
The Canadian musician, 36, has been named in a lawsuit by recording artist Obrafour – real name Michael Darko – whose lawyer claims Drake used an unauthorized sample of his client’s 2003 single Ohene remix.
Imran H. Ansari, Obrafour’s legal representative, spoke exclusively to DailyMail.com and stated, ‘It’s such a blatant rip and sample of our client’s number. In fact, as part of the complaint, we have the emails from the woman who clears rights for Drake, who contacts our client via email and doesn’t wait for approval.
“Then Drake dropped the sort of secret album, if you will, without getting proper clearances from my client.”
Hot Water: Drake is being sued for $10 million for copyright infringement in his 2022 song, Calling My Name
The Canadian musician, 36, has been named in a hefty lawsuit by artist Obrafour (pictured) whose lawyer alleges Drake stole a sample of his client’s 2003 single Ohene remix.
Elements of Obrafour’s single feature on the popular song from Drake’s dance album Honestly, Nevermind, which came out surprisingly on June 17, 2022.
The new lawsuit alleges that a member of Drake’s team emailed the week before the album’s release requesting permission for the sample.
However, Obrafour had not given the rapper – real name Aubrey Drake Graham – permission at the time of release and his lawyer stated that the musician was ‘surprised’ to see his work appear without permission.
“Frankly, it’s insulting to an artist who is a musician of some popularity, especially in their home country, who takes pride in the creative work they’ve put out,” Ansari argued. Only to find out that it’s just being ignored in the sense that Drake tastes out of his work without permission. The emails show that he knew he had to do this. And he didn’t.’
The lawsuit states: “The copying of the sampled phrase in the infringing work is so direct in nature that the audio of the sampled phrase heard in the infringing work has little or no audible manipulation, processing, or other alteration of the original character such as contains heard. in the copyrighted work.”
It continues: “To date, in the mere 304 days since the release of the infringing work, the infringing work has been streamed more than 4.1 million times on YouTube, more than 47,442,160 streams on Spotify, and tens of millions times streamed on Apple Music.”
Obrafour is seeking damages of at least $10 million, citing “all profits and damages in the following categories attributable to the infringement,” including album sales, downloads, sponsorships, digital revenues, and concerts Drake performed after release of the number.
Ansari stated to DailyMail.com that the filing of the lawsuit was intended to “send a message that our customer recognizes that this was a hugely popular album with this hugely popular song and that Drake is such an internationally sought after artist and performer with huge ticket sales.
The lawsuit states that Calling My Name has been “streamed over 4.1 million times on YouTube, streamed over 47,442,160 times on Spotify, and tens of millions of times on Apple Music.”
“It sends the message that our client will keep it, he clearly thinks he deserves it. For the loss of income he should be credited with and deserves… My client and I are prepared to appear in court if necessary.”
The lawsuit comes a day after Universal Music Group forced an AI-generated song featuring the simulated voices of Drake and The Weeknd to be pulled from streaming services for “infringing content created with generative AI.”
The song went viral over the weekend and by the time it was taken down on Monday afternoon, it had been streamed 600,000 times on Spotify and 15 million views on TikTok and 275,000 times on YouTube.
Frankly, Nevermind became Drake’s seventh studio album when it came out in 2022
The song, titled Heart on My Sleeve, was said to have been created using AI programming trained on artist music, something UMG said “represents both a violation of our agreements and a violation of copyright law.”
The music label told Billboard magazine that the viral posts “demonstrate why platforms have a fundamental legal and ethical responsibility to prevent their services from being used in ways that harm artists.”
They added that the episode “begs the question of which side of history all stakeholders in the music ecosystem want to be on: the side of artists, fans and human creative expression, or the side of deep falsifications, fraud and artist denial.” their due compensation.
“We are encouraged by our platform partners’ involvement in these issues – because they recognize that they need to be part of the solution.”
Universal Music Group recently pulled an AI-generated song featuring Drake’s simulated voice from streaming services for “infringing content created with generative AI” (file image)
Ansari commented, “Universal Music Group just approached this AI company and said it’s infringing on copyright and not respecting the artist, but then see what Drake does.” He does not respect the rights of our clients and his creative work and his ownership thereof. He sampled straight from this number without even giving our client a real chance to engage in that conversation.”
Frankly, Nevermind became Drake’s seventh studio album when it came out in 2022.
The dance-themed project surprised many fans and it was initially panned for the creative change.
The album came as a complete shock, with the musician not doing any previous promotion for it.
The speed of the new project may be due in part to the fact that the God’s Plan star recently signed a $400 million record deal earlier this year.
In May 2022, Sir Lucian Grainge – head of Universal Music Group – confirmed that Drake had signed a huge “extensive, multifaceted deal” with the label, as reported by Variety.
The deal “includes recordings, publishing, merchandise and visual media projects.”
DailyMail.com has reached out to Drake’s representatives for comment.