According to reports, Dua Lipa has been served with a lawsuit over her song “Levitating.”
The 27-year-old first launched the song in 2020, and it swiftly rose to the top of the charts, reaching the top five in the UK, Australia, and America.
She is now facing additional legal action as producer Bosco Kante claims she utilised his mobile call box technology on remixes without his authorization.
Kante is the co-founder of the ElectroSpit box, a digital version of the gadget, which allows a musician’s voice vibrations to sound like musical instruments.
According to the documents seen by PA, Kante was contacted about ‘developing and executing a talk box performance’ in conjunction with Levitating, and Lipa was given permission to use the gadget on the original recording.
He claimed, however, that this did not specifically apply to remixes.
The producer has now claimed that his ElectroSpit chat box was utilised on a remix starring DaBaby, which has received over 1.6 billion Spotify listens.
It was also apparently utilised on Madonna and Missy Elliot’s remix of The Blessed Madonna.
People Magazine reports that his lawyers added in the documents: ‘All three remixes sampled and incorporated a greater amount of plaintiff’s work than that used in the original version.
‘Defendants did not seek or receive any authorization or permission to use the composition or sound recording of plaintiff’s work from plaintiff.’
‘Plaintiff made numerous attempts to resolve this matter short of litigation, but such efforts were unsuccessful, due to defendants’ unwillingness to co-operate or accept responsibility for this blatant infringement of plaintiff’s copyrights,’ the court documents say, via PA.
Kante allegedly filed the complaint in Los Angeles on Monday, claiming he is entitled to more than $20 million.
Lipa has yet to respond publicly to his charges, but this isn’t the first time she’s been sued for the song.
Artikal Sound System’s case was dismissed in June after they claimed it was a ‘rip off’ of their song, Live Your Life.
She was also accused by composers L Russell Brown and Sandy Linzer of plagiarising two of their tracks in order to make Levitating.
