Drake is being sued by legendary Ghanaian rapper Obrafour for using a sample of his song “Calling My Name” from the Honestly Never mind album that was taken from Obrafour’s 2003 remix of “Oye Ohene.”
Obrafour claimed in the paperwork he submitted to a New York court that Drake’s unauthorised sampling of his music violated his copyright.
“Defendants released the Infringing Work on June 17, 2022, despite the fact that an agent of one or more Defendants had previously contacted Obrafour seeking to obtain Obrafour’s permission for the use of the Copyrighted Work in the Infringing Work.”
“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.”
“In addition to generating enormous sums of global streams and sales across numerous platforms, the Infringing Work has also been exploited by the Defendants via other means, including live performance.”
Meanwhile, other defendants in the suit include writers, producers, performers, record labels, entertainment companies, publishers, managers, administrators, and/or distributors of the infringing work.
On Track 6, ‘Calling My Name’, Drake sampled a beloved popular song from one of Ghana’s best musicians alive, Obrafour.
