Dua Lipa was sued for copyright infringement on Tuesday (March 1st) by a Florida reggae group that claims the British pop star stole her hit song “Levitating” from a lesser-known 2017 song.
In a lawsuit in federal court in Los Angeles, members of a group called Artikal Sound System claim that Lipa’s “Levitating” – which spent 68 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 and was the No. 1 song in the 2021 Hot 100. extracted from the song of the group “Live Your Life”.
Take a look
Take a look
Dua Lipa
Check out the latest videos, charts and news
Check out the latest videos, charts and news
The complaint was very brief and contained mostly standard allegations of copyright infringement, with little detail on how and why Lipa claimed to have copied the song. But he wrote that the two songs were so similar that it was so “It is very unlikely that the Levitator was created independently.”
“Levitating”, released in 2020 on Lipa’s second studio album Future nostalgiawas a huge hit that eventually reached No. 2 in the Hot 100 and secured the honor of being the longest-running top 10 song by a female artist in the charts.
Artikal Sound System is a reggae band based in South Florida, founded in 2012 as a duo, before later adding more musicians and vocalist Logan Rex. The band released “Live Your Life” on their 2017 EP Smoke and mirrors.
As with any copyright case, the case against Lipa claims that she has “access” to the earlier “Live Your Life” – which means that she heard the song, thus giving her the opportunity to copy it. But the case does not explain exactly why the band believes that the pop star heard their song.
The lawsuit also named Warner Records, as well as others who helped create Levitating. Representatives of Lipa and Warner Music Group did not respond to requests for comment on Tuesday night.
Listen to the two songs below: