Hip-hop artist Travis Scott has been hit with a lawsuit alleging copyright infringement involving his tracks Stargazing and Til Further Notice.
The lawsuit was brought by Dion Norman, a New Orleans-based songwriter, CEO of Free World Entertainment and a journalist at The Heat Magazine, along with Derrick “Mellow Fellow” Ordogne, a rap producer who was primarily active in the 1990s.
According to a complaint filed with the US District Court for Eastern District of Louisiana on January 25, Scott’s 2018 track Stargazing and his 2023 track Til Further Notice both used unauthorized samples of Bitches (Reply), a track that Norman and Ordogne wrote and recorded in 1991, and which appeared on DJ Jimi’s 1992 album It’s Jimi.
Sony Music Entertainment is also named as a defendant in the suit, as are producers Metro Boomin and James Blake.
The lawsuit alleges that a vocalization of the words “alright, alright, alright” that can be heard at the start of Bitches (Reply) was sampled at six points in Til Further Notice, and also appeared in Stargazing.
“Defendants admitted to the unauthorized use of Bitches (Reply) to the plaintiffs when [they] had a sample clearance vendor contact the plaintiffs about clearing the subject sample and interpolated use after the release of [Scott’s] album, Utopia,” claims the complaint, which can be read in full here.
Til Further Notice is the 19th track on Scott’s album Utopia, which was released in July 2023 by Cactus Jack Records, the label owned by Travis Scott (whose legal name is Jacques Webster II) along with Epic Records, which is owned by Sony Music.
The track has amassed nearly 93 million listens on Spotify, and has been played 6.9 million times on YouTube.
Metro Boomin, whose legal name is Leland Tyler Wayne, is listed as a producer on the track, as is singer/producer James Blake (Litherland), both of whom are named as defendants in the lawsuit.
Stargazing was a single off Scott’s 2018 album Astroworld. The track has amassed 709 million streams on Spotify, and various versions of it on YouTube collectively have more than 140 million plays.
Bitches (Reply) can be heard here.
The lawsuit describes Norman and Ordogne’s Bitches (Reply) as “one of the more sampled and interpolated musical works in Rap/Hip Hop history,” having been sampled in numerous songs including Beyonce’s Church Girl, Wiz Khalifa’s Bad Ass Bitches, Lil Wayne’s Start This S–t Off Right, Kid Cudi’s Girls ft. Too Short, and Nelly’s Tip Drill, among others.
The lawsuit seeks compensatory, statutory and punitive damages for the alleged copyright infringement, as well as attorneys’ fees and costs incurred in filing the lawsuit.
This is not the first time Travis Scott has faced a copyright infringement suit.
In 2019, Scott settled a lawsuit brought by DJ Paul alleging similarities between Scott’s Astroworld track No Bystanders and Three 6 Mafia‘s 1997 track Tear Da Club Up.
In 2020, he was taken to court by a group of musicians, including Olivier Bassil, Benjamin Lasnier and Lukas Benjamin Leth, who claimed that Scott’s 2019 hit Highest In The Room plagiarized their own song, Cartier. That case was dismissed by a California District Court judge in 2021, at the request of both parties.Music Business Worldwide
