Kanye West is being sued for one of his most popular refrains: "get down, girl, go 'head, get down."
The 35 year-old rapper and producer supposedly sampled 13 seconds of David Pryor's 1974 song, "Bumpin' Bus Stop", a track that reached obscurity at best-by musical group Thunder and Lightning.
Trena Steward and Lorenzo Pryor, the children of David Pryor, filed a civil complaint Monday against West, Roc-A-Fella Records, The Island and Def Jam Music Group for alleged copyright infringement.
They each own one-quarter of the song, according to TMZ, and are accusing West of taking audio of David Pryor saying, "get down" three times as an echo for the chorus of Kanye's 2005 hit "Gold Digger", which sold more than 3 million copies in the U.S. and tens of millions of copies globally.
Now, the Pryor children are asking the judge to stop distribution of the track, and demand to be provided with "millions of dollars" for damage reparation of the unlicensed sample.
According to their case, they say the defendants have "systematically and willfully refused to clear samples of the Plaintiff's original, copyrighted work in order to gain a commercial profit and to avoid paying and crediting the author," MTV.com wrote.
Hip-hop, a sample-driven genre of music, has encountered its fair share of law suits against rappers/producers who have used a grab-bag of other peoples' harmonies, lyrics and drums for their beats.
West is no stranger to this kind of litigation: in 2010, musician Vincent Peters sued West over another big-time hit, "Stronger." The court granted West the win in that particular case-West's lawyers referenced Nietzche's quote "that which does not kill us makes us stronger," which is also used in the song.
Then, in 2012, record label TufAmerica put Kanye on the bench for taking parts of a 1969 song by Eddie Bo without proper allowance for his track, "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy."
West's spokespeople have not yet released a statement, and are flying low under the radar for now.
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
