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Ye Settles With Boogie Down Productions Over Unlicensed Sample In ‘Life of the Party’

Ye (formerly Kanye West) settles a copyright lawsuit over a sample from rap legends Boogie Down Productions in “Life of the Party.”

Filed in November 2022, the current lawsuit was lodged by Phase One Network, the group that owns Boogie Down’s copyrights, over allegations that Ye had used incorporated key aspects from the 1986 song “South Bronx” into “Life of the Party,” which was released on his 2021album Donda. Last summer, attorneys for Ye fought back with an unusual argument: That Boogie Down founder KRS-One had publicly promised all future rappers that “you will not get sued” over sampling the group’s catalog. Phase One later called that a “bizarre argument,” noting that, when the documentary was made, KRS-One didn’t actually own the music he was claiming to place in the public domain: “Movants cite to no law to support such a theory.

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