Kanye West Sued Over Song Sampling

A record label is suing Kanye West for what it claims are illegal song samples on the rapper’s latest album.

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TufAmerica says two tracks on West’s 2010 disc My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy include a bit from of “Hook and Sling, Part 1” by New Orleans singer-pianist Eddie Bo. TufAmerica says it bought the rights to the 1969 single more than 15 years ago. The sample appears in West’s “Who Will Survive in America?” and “Lost in the World.”

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In its complaint, filed in federal court in Manhattan, TufAmerica says West’s label Roc-A-Fella and parent Universal Music Group paid it a license fee of $62,500 but “failed and refused to enter into written license agreements that accounted for their multiple other uses of [‘Hook and Sling’].” The sample also appeared in the “Lost in the World” video and the short film based on West’s song “Runaway.”

My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with 496,000 units sold and since has been certified platinum.

TufAmerica, represented by New York attorney Kelly Talcott, is seeking undisclosed damages for copyright infringement.

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The label made headlines in May when it filed a copyright-infringement suit against Beastie Boys and other entities the day before the rap trio’s Adam “MCA” Yauch died of cancer. That suit, which also named Universal Music, Brooklyn Dust Music and Capitol Records as defendants, claimed that samples from two Trouble Funk songs it administers were illicitly used on the Beasties' 1980s albums License to Ill and Paul's Boutique.

Watch the video for West’s “Lost in the World” below.