Katy Perry copied Dark Horse from Christian rapper Flame (bbc.co.uk).
Katy gave evidence in the week-long trial, denying she had ever heard the 2009 song Joyful Noise by Flame before recording her track.
She even offered to perform Dark Horse for the court room when her lawyers were unable to play the song for jurors because of a broken speaker system.
But “despite the joke” and perhaps offer to perform it with pharaonic whipped cream squirting from her mighty tatas the jury ruling against Katy yesterday as conclusion to legal proceedings which started in 2014.
Katy’s team had described the beat of both songs as “commonplace” while the legal team behind Christian rapper Flame—aka Marcus Tyrone Gray—refuted Perry’s claim that she had never heard the song by claiming she started her career as a Christian artist—she did indeed release a eponymous Christian rock album in 2001 under the alias Katy Hudson (Wikipedia)—and that she had tainted his song and reputation with lyrics about the illuminati and other allusions offensive to some Christians (forbes.com) with the effect that “They’re trying to shove Mr Gray into some gospel music alleyway that no one ever visits”, which does indeed sound a rather awful place to find yourself shoved with only a Hallelujah for company.
Today (Tuesday 30 July) the court will start work on deciding how much in damages Gray may be owed.
This of course is not the first time Katy has had legal battles with those of the Christian faith with regards the sale of a villa which had served as the convent of the Order of the Most Holy and Immaculate Heart, with the only surviving member saying that the pop star has “blood on her hands”: Katy Perry lawsuit: Nun involved in property row ‘dies in court’ (bbc.co.uk, Mar. 2018).
Updated 1st August 2019
Katy Perry and her team must pay $2.78 million for copying a Christian rap song for her hit ‘Dark Horse’ (buzzfeednews.com).
Of the financial penalty, a jury determined that Perry is responsible for just over $550,000, with Capitol Records responsible for the majority of the tab, the Associated Press reported. It was not immediately clear how much others involved in writing the song, including producer Dr. Luke, were on the hook for.
With producer Dr. Luke’s legal team still busy suing Ke$ha for defamation after her abuse allegations were dropped (eonline.com, Nov. 2018) and still seemingly putting pressure on those with who he works, with Bebe Rexha recently claiming suffering a panic attack ended up with her phoning her mother in tears (femalefirst.co.uk, Jun. 2019) being made to feel need to write a “hit” on the spot, “spot” being the producer’s home she described as a “f***ing mess”.
Updated 18th March 2020
But some added joy for the singer who recently shared the good news that she has Orlando Bloom’s bun in her oven in a new music video (dailymail.co.uk):
Katy Perry wins appeal in $2.8m plagiarism case (theguardian.com).
An appeal has reversed that decision, with the judge, Christina Snyder, setting aside the jury’s verdict. She said it was “undisputed” that the eight-note section of Dark Horse in question was “not a particularly unique or rare combination” of notes.
With Gray now intending to appeal the appeal decision.
Recent/related stories
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