Famed singer Dua Lipa is reportedly being sued by a reggae band who says that her 2020 hit single, “Levitating,” was taken from one of theirs. The lawsuit states that Lipa “rips off their 2017 song.”
The band in question, Artikal Sound System, is set to prove that profits from Lipa’s song are owed to them, claiming that “Levitating” is a copy of their reggae hit, “Live Your Life.”
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The lawsuit was reportedly filed in Los Angeles federal court. The group has also named Lipa’s label, Warner Records, and others as defendants.
Lipa’s track spent 68 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and was the No. 1 Hot 100 song of 2021. So far, neither Lipa nor her team has commented on the claims of copyright infringement.
Check out both Lipa’s song and the band’s song here below.
The lawsuit claims that it was “highly unlikely that ‘Levitating’ was created independently.”
Lipa released her latest album, Future Nostalgia, in 2020 and has previously said that she didn’t think “Levitating,” which features controversial singer DaBaby, would become such a major hit. The song was popular on social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram during the pandemic.
“Well, when we made ‘Levitating,’ the day that we made ‘Levitating,’ we knew it was special and we knew it was special because it just gave us a really great feeling,” Lipa previously said on The Journal podcast. “And it was also the song where I was like, ‘Okay, now I have an idea of what Future Nostalgia actually is.’
She added, “It was the first song that really helped me dictate what the other songs were going to sound like and things started to take shape once I had ‘Levitating.’”
Lipa also recently told The Wall Street Journal that she’s working on a new album, saying: “I’ve done a big chunk of writing: It’s starting to take shape; I’ve got a lot of it recorded.
“It has a vision. It has a name, I think—for now,” she continued. “It’s just been fun experimenting. I’m always going to make pop music, but it has its own unique sound, which is exciting and something that feels like a movement from Future Nostalgia.”
Lipa added, “It’s still in baby form, so we’ll see as it progresses. In all honesty, it’s probably not what my fans want to hear, but I’m in no rush.”