The recent ruling in favor of the estate/family of Marvin Gaye versus Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams for copyright infringement has a lot of artists feeling either salty or feeling empowered.
Now music mogul Jermaine Dupri is one of the artist/producers that feels like they can try their hand at similar claims as the Gaye family. Following the jury ruling this past week that awarded the Gaye’s a whopping $7.4 million in damages from the mega hit “Blurred Lines”, Dupri has now taken aim at his fellow Atlanta native Ciara claiming she ripped off one of his biggest songs.
“Ciara’s new single is a complete rip-off of Usher’s ‘U Got It Bad,'” Dupri said. “I’m clear on what I made and I’m clear on how music influences people and I’m clear on chord changes and how people move things. … It might not be as evident as the ‘Blurred Lines’ situation, but I believe the same thing happened to me.” he said in an interview with Billboard.
He went on to say that he, Usher and producer Bryan-Michael Cox all noticed the similarities immediately. And he said “I Bet” also sounds like R&B singer Tamia‘s “Still,” another song he produced.
In the same interview he also acknowledged that nothing is ever truly new, and everyone borrows from something that came before.
“Younger producers like myself and Pharrell, we make records that are influenced by other records that are out there,” Dupri said in an interview Thursday. “That’s how hip-hop has always been created — it has some kind of element of something (from) the past. Or sometimes we just take the entire sample and we give the artist the credit for that sample.”
“We’ve all been in a position where it could go like this or we can give the producer the credit,” he added.
Despite seeing both sides, JD say he will be reaching out to Ciara’s team and ask that he, Cox and Usher be properly credited.
A personal representative for Ciara referred questions to a label spokeswoman. That spokeswoman did not return email and text messages seeking comment.
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