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Drake sued over Honestly, Nevermind sample
By Chris Cooke | Published on Thursday 20 April 2023
Drake has been sued over allegations that an uncleared sample appears on ‘Calling My Name’, a track on his 2022 album ‘Honestly, Nevermind’.
The lawsuit has been filed by Ghana-based artist Obrafour, real name Michael Elliot Kwabena Okyere Darko. He claims in his lawsuit that Drake’s track contains “direct copying – or ‘sampling’ – of vocal excerpts” from his song ‘Oye Ohene’.
Furthermore, the lawsuit states that Team Drake knew that the sample needed licensing, because they tried to license it. “Defendants released the infringing work on 17 Jun 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”.
Crucially, “Obrafour never granted defendants permission to use the copyrighted work”, with ‘Honestly, Nevermind’ being released “mere days” after Drake’s reps had made contact with Obrafour and before he had had chance to respond.
Based on these allegations, Obrafour believes that Drake and his business partners are infringing his copyright by making ‘Calling My Name’ available and he would like some lovely damages.
