Kanye West is once again at the heart of legal proceedings for his music. According to the American media TMZ, Bishop David Paul Moten, originally from Texas, has filed a lawsuit against the American rapper as well as against record labels UMG Recordings, Def Jam Recordings and GOOD Music.
Pastor accuses Kanye West of using one of his sermons without his permission in the track Come to Life, present on the album Donda released in 2021. He seeks damages from all four parties.
A speech used “without consent”
As reported in court documents seen by TMZ, David Paul Moten accuses Kanye West of having “deliberately and blatantly used the sound recordings of others without consent or permission”.
He also clarifies that his vocals and religious discourse were sampled in the title’s intro and looped throughout “for 70 seconds on a 5-minute, 10-second track, which is more than 20% of the song”.
Unveiled in August 2021, Donda is Kanye West’s tenth studio album. On its first day of release, the disc topped the Apple Music album charts in no less than 152 countries, a record for the platform in such a short time.
These figures made Kanye West and Donda the most streamed artist and album in a day on Apple Music in 2021.