Rick Astley is suing Yung Gravy because he thinks that Yung Gravy copied his voice on his song “Betty.”
The song came out last summer and was a huge hit. It is based on Astley’s famous song “Never Gonna Give You Up,” which came out in 1987.
But even though Gravy’s team had a license for the song’s instrumentals, they didn’t have permission to use Gravy’s vocals.
In the lawsuit, it is said that by hiring Nick “Popnick” Seeley to imitate his voice, they “stole” his voice.
A source says that the lawsuit says:
In an effort to capitalise off of the immense popularity and goodwill of Mr. Astley, defendants … conspired to include a deliberate and nearly indistinguishable imitation of Mr. Astley’s voice throughout the song.
The public could not tell the difference. The imitation of Mr. Astley’s voice was so successful the public believed it was actually Mr. Astley singing.
It continues:
A license to use the original underlying musical composition does not authorise the stealing of the artist’s voice in the original recording.
So, instead, they resorted to theft of Mr. Astley’s voice without a license and without agreement.
It is also said that Yung Gravy, whose real name is Matthew Hauri, said “false things” that made it sound like Rick Astley backed “Betty.”
In an August interview with Billboard, the 26-year-old said of the song:
I always thought that sample would be sick to do something with. I just never figured it was clearable.
Somebody who had part-ownership of the rights to the sample hit me up like, ‘We f**k with you, you should try it out.’
My boy Nick, who does a lot of sample replays and recreating original samples, we basically remade the whole song. Had a different singer and instruments, but it was all really close because it makes it easier legally.
He continued:
We said, ‘Let’s try to clear it and see what happens.’
At first, two of the three writers that had to approve it, approved it and one guy wanted us to make it a little bit cleaner.
So then I had to go back and change lyrics, so there is an earlier version.
Overall, it’s kinda the same thing, but there’s a dirty version that sounds like a Gravy song with more cuss words. I love how it turned out.
Reps for both Rick Astley and Yung Gravy have been asked for their thoughts on the same.
