Anchored neatly on the Black Panther soundtrack, Kendrick Lamar and The Weeknd’s 2018 collaboration “Pray For Me” went on to be a Billboard 100 Top 10 hit.
However, according to TMZ, a Brooklyn-based rock band named Yeasayer says the two hitmakers swiped their secret sauce a 2007 record titled “Sunrise.”
The legal documents reportedly specify the band knew their sample was stolen, due to a “distinctive choral performance” that was “comprised of male voices singing in their highest registers, with animated, pulsing vibrato.”
Findings also deduced the sample was sped up with the “intent to conceal the infringement” and was used throughout “Pray for Me” up to eight separate times.
Yeasayer is not only requesting an injunction that blocks further sales and airplay of “Pray,” they want all the record’s profits and damages. There are no reports if the song’s producers Doc McKinney and Frank Dukes were named in the lawsuit as well.
Pitchfork notes the band broke up in 2019.
Listen to both songs below.