Canadian rapper, Drake faces a copyright infringement lawsuit of $10 million filed by a Ghanaian rapper over claims he sampled one of his songs in the 2022 track ‘Calling My Name’ without permission.
Drake, 36, has been named in a lawsuit by artist Obrafour – real name Michael Darko – whose lawyer claims that Drake used an unpermitted sample from his client’s 2003 single, Ohene remix.
Speaking exclusively to DailyMail, Obrafour’s legal representative Imran H. Ansari stated: ‘It’s such a blatant rip and sample from our client’s song.
‘More so, we have as part of the complaint the emails from the woman that clears rights for Drake, reaching out to our client via email and not waiting for him to get the permission.
‘Then Drake dropped the sort of secret album, if you will, without getting the right clearances owned by my client.’
Elements of Obrafour’s 2003 single ‘Oye Ohene (Remix)’ feature on Drake’s Honestly, Nevermind track; the album — marking Drake’s foray into dance music — was surprise-released on June 17, 2022.
According to the lawsuit, obtained by Rolling Stone, a member of Drake’s team twice sent a ‘Clearance Email’ that would approve the sample to Obrafour in the week before Honestly, Nevermind’s whirlwind release.
However, Obrafour had not given the rapper – real name Aubrey Drake Graham – permission by the time of release and his attorney stated that the musician had been ‘surprised’ to see his work featured without permission.
‘Quite 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 that they have put together,’ Ansari argued.
‘Only to find out that it’s just disregarded in the sense that Drake samples from his work without permission. The emails are indicative that he knew he needed to do so. And he didn’t do so.’
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 contains little or no audible manipulation, processing, or other alteration to its original character as heard in the Copyrighted Work.’
It continues: ‘To date, over the mere 304 days that have elapsed since the Infringing Work was released, the Infringing Work has already been streamed over 4.1 million times on YouTube, streamed over 47,442,160 times on Spotify, and streamed tens of millions of times on Apple Music.’
Obrafour is seeking at least $10 million in compensation, citing ‘all profits and damages in the following categories attributable to the infringement’ including album sales, downloads, sponsorships, digital revenue, and concerts that Drake performed following the release of the song.
Ansari stated that filing the lawsuit was to send ‘a message that our client recognizes that this was a hugely popular album with this hugely popular song and Drake is such an internationally desired recording artist and performer with huge ticket sales.
‘It is sending the message our client is gonna keep it obviously he feels he deserves For the loss of revenue that he should be credited with and deserve… My client and myself are willing to go to trial if need be.’
The suit comes one 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 track went viral over the weekend and by the time it was removed on Monday afternoon, it had been streamed 600,000 times on Spotify and received 15m views on TikTok views and 275,000 on YouTube.
