Renowned Ghanaian rapper Obrafour is suing famous Canadian rapper Drake for sampling ‘Oye Ohene’ in his ‘Calling My Name’ track that is listed on his ‘Honestly Nevermind’ album.
According to the documents presented to a court in New York, Obrafour pointed out that Drake sampled his ‘Oye Ohene’ without consent.
Parts of the document read;
“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”.
“Obrafour never granted Defendants permission to use the Copyrighted Work and the Infringing work was released mere days later”.
“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.”
Obrafour is suing the Canadian superstar for an amount not less than $10 million.
He is also seeking a court order so that;
“Defendants and their agents, employees, officers, attorneys, successors, licensees, partners, and assigns, and all persons acting in concert or participation with each or any one of them, to cease directly and indirectly infringing, and causing, enabling, facilitating, encouraging, promoting, inducing, and/or participating in the infringement of any of Obrafour’s rights protected by the Copyright Act.”
The ‘Oye Ohene’ sample was found at 0:53 seconds of the Drake’s‘Calling My Name’.
Click to read full court document below:
