Rick Astley has sued Yung Gravy, alleging that the rapper imitated his voice from ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’ without authorisation on a recent single.
The suit alleges that Gravy’s track ‘Betty (Get Money)’ uses “a deliberate and nearly indistinguishable imitation of Mr. Astley’s voice” from his 1987 classic.
Filed in Los Angeles court yesterday (January 26), the suit added: “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.”
As Rolling Stone report, Gravy was allegedly granted the rights to use the instrumental of ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’ in the song, but not to use the actual recording as a sample.
The suit then alleged that the rapper hired Nick ‘Popnick’ Seeley to imitate Astley’s voice, quoting an Instagram video that allegedly sees Popnick discussing how he wanted his vocal to “sound identical” to Astley’s.
The suit added: “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.”
NME have reached out to representatives for Yung Gravy for comment.
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