According to a filing in Manhattan federal court on Wednesday (March 3), Kanye West has resolved a complaint in which the iconic rapper and businessman was charged with illegally sampling a song by Marshall Jefferson for his album Donda 2.
The case was dismissed by U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres, who also stated in her order that the matter had been resolved in principle.
There were no known settlement specifics. The plaintiffs’ and West’s, who is now officially known as Ye, representatives did not immediately reply to demands for comment on Thursday.
One of the firms that severed connections with West after he made well publicized anti-Semitic remarks in 2022 was the sizable law firm Greenberg Traurig, which had initially defended Ye in the case.
A request for comment was not immediately answered by Angeli Law Group’s Peter Hawkes, Ye’s new legal counsel.
Donda 2 Lawsuit Won By Kanye West
From Ye’s native Chicago, Jefferson is regarded as a founding father of house music, a genre of electronic dance music. In the past year, Ultra International Music Publishing LLC sued the “Can’t Tell Me Nothing” hitmaker along with various other entities.
A unlawful sample from Jefferson’s song “Move Your Body” (1986) was allegedly used in Ye’s 2022 album Donda 2 track “Flowers,” according to Ultra.
While denying violating Ultra’s copyright, in a March 2023 court filing Ye acknowledged sampling “Move Your Body.”
Ye published Donda 2 via his Stem Player, a portable gadget that enables users to separate and reassemble music components.
The complaint also names Kano Computing Ltd, a British business that collaborated with West to create the Stem Player. Requests for comments regarding the settlement from Kano representatives also went unanswered.
The Grammy winning producer has already resolved a number of other cases with copyright and his sampling. He is still dealing with a lawsuit from the previous year for a purportedly unlicensed sample in his 2021 single “Life of the Party.”
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