Ghanaian rapper, Michael Elliot Darko, professionally known as Obrafour, has filed a lawsuit against Canadian rapper Drake for alleged copyright infringement.
Obrafour is seeking $10 million in damages from Drake, claiming that the Grammy-winning artist sampled the remix of his 2003 song ‘Oye Ohene’ without permission.
The alleged infringement involves Drake’s hit song “Calling My Name,” off his ‘Honestly, Nevermind’ album which was released in 2022 and became a massive hit worldwide.
According to Obrafour, Drake sampled the 2003 remix of Obrafour’s ‘Oye Ohene’ without his permission or proper credit.
The Ghanaian rapper is suing the international artist in a New York court, saying that Drake infringed on his copyright when he sampled his song without seeking his approval.
Based on the details of the suit, Drake had emailed Obrafour seeking permission to sample the song, but received no response.
The suit added that Drake went ahead to use the sample in the song despite not getting approval.
“Defendants released the Infringing Work on June 17, 2022, despite the fact that an agent of one or more Defendants had previously contacted Obrafour seeking to obtain Obrafour’s permission for the use of the Copyrighted Work in the Infringing Work,” the court document read in part.
“Obrafour never granted Defendants permission to use the Copyrighted Work, and the Infringing work was released mere days later.”
Obrafour further pointed out that the ‘Hotline Bling’ hitmaker and other defendants in the suit have greatly benefited from the proceeds of the song since its release.
He’s therefore seeking $10,000,000 (Ten Million Dollars) in damages, among others.
“To date, over the mere 304 days that have elapsed since the Infringing Work was released, the Infringing Work has already been streamed over 4.1 million times on YouTube, streamed over 47,442,160 times on Spotify, and streamed tens of millions of times on Apple Music.
In addition to generating enormous sums of global streams and sales across numerous platforms, the Infringing Work has also been exploited by the Defendants via other means, including live performance,” the document added.
