After a lawsuit alleging that Kanye West sampled a Boogie Down Productions hit without permission was settled this week, the rapper will no longer be held accountable.
A voluntary dismissal order and agreement for the lawsuit were filed on Monday, August 19, according to court records that HipHopDX was able to access.
All that was disclosed in the settlement, according to Billboard, was that each party would be responsible for covering its own legal expenses.
The settlement excluded a number of defendants.
Ye was sued in 2022 over a Boogie Down Productions sample from his song “Life of the Party,” which was a duet with Donda’s André 3000.
Phase One Network, the owner of the rights to Boogie Down Productions’ legendary 1986 Bridge Wars diss track “South Bronx,” which was reportedly sampled without permission, filed it instead of BDP leader KRS-One.
TMZ alleges that although Ye and his team first contacted the corporation to clear the sample, a deal was never reached. The Chicago native apparently didn’t let it stop him from rescinding his promise and using the sample nevertheless.
During his split with Kanye West in September 2021, Drake leaked the song “Life of the Party” at first. The following month, Ye exclusively made it available on his $200 Stem Player. Later, it became available on streaming services as an extra song included in the Donda deluxe version.
According to the firm, “Life of the Party” increased sales of the Stem Player, which sold about 11,000 units in its first day and brought in about $2.2 million. The business was preventing future usage of the “South Bronx” sample while attempting to get a cut of the earnings.
In other Ye-related legal news, Adidas recently prevailed in court against investors over remarks the rapper made about Jews and other inappropriate behavior that occurred during their Yeezy collaboration.
HipHopDX has obtained court documents that show the judge dismissed the lawsuit brought against the sports behemoth last week, siding with them and accusing them of neglecting to protect investors by putting off any harm caused by Ye.
Judge Karin J. Immergut determined that the HRSA-ILA Funds’ complaint lacked sufficient evidence and did not establish Adidas’ deceitful investors about its profitable but erratic collaboration with West. The partnership ended in October 2022 as a result of a series of racist and antisemitic remarks made by the rapper.
Judge Karin J. Immergut expressed her concern, saying, “Certainly, that [Kanye] allegedly engaged in such behavior while working with Adidas is troubling.” “What [West] is said to have done is not supported by this Court.” However, the matter at hand is not whether to censure [him] or make Adidas answerable for [his] actions.
“This Court must decide whether [HRSA-ILA Funds] has sufficiently pleaded facts demonstrating Adidas’s misrepresentation of investors and subsequent federal securities fraud. This is a clear legal matter. The answer is no, based on the record that is currently before this court,” she said.
The case, which was filed in an Oregon court last year, accused Adidas of neglecting to “publicly disclose offensive and inappropriate activities performed between 2013 and 2018” by Kanye West, in addition to the company’s own internal concerns regarding his conduct.
The German corporation “misled investors and committed federal securities fraud,” according to investors as a result.
