Kendrick Lamar has been named a defendant in a copyright lawsuit concerning his 2017 song “Loyalty,” featuring Rihanna, as Music Business Worldwide points out. The lawsuit was filed on Friday, August 21 in a California federal court by the music producer Terrance Hayes. Hayes alleged that the production of “LOYALTY.” was lifted from his own 2011 track called “Loyalty.” The others named as defendants in the suit are producer Terrace Martin, To Pimp a Butterfly contributor Josef Leimberg, and Top Dawg Entertainment.
According to the complaint, Hayes and Martin shared a mutual collaborator in Leimberg. Hayes asserts that he wrote his own song called “Loyalty” in 2011 and, that same year, recorded the track together with Leimberg, and kept the project session on Leimberg’s computer. The lawsuit alleges that Martin had access to two of Hayes’ tracks—the original 2011 “Loyalty” and a remix that was produced in 2016—via Leimberg’s computer, and that Kendrick Lamar’s DAMN. track “copied the entire composition, including title, melody, harmony and rhythm” from Hayes’ work. The complaint also alleges that Martin took Hayes’ track and “slowed it down through a synthesizer and combined it with another sample to disguise the copying” on “LOYALTY.”
Hayes is seeking all profits from Kendrick’s “LOYALTY.,” in addition to the equivalent of “ all losses
of Plaintiff” that came about as a result of the infringement and “any other monetary advantage gained by the Defendants through their infringement, the exact sum to be proven at the time of trial,” in addition to legal fees. Find the full complaint below. Pitchfork has reached out to representatives for Kendrick Lamar for comment. A representative for Terrace Martin offered no comment.