Childish Gambino has been hit with legal action over allegations of copyright infringement regarding his Grammy Award-winning single This Is America.
Emelike Nwosuocha, who performs as Kidd Wes, has claimed the 2018 chart smash bears striking similarities to his own tune, Made in America, which he posted on music platform SoundCloud in September 2016, and on YouTube shortly thereafter.
He even registered the track with officials at the U.S. Copyright Office in May 2017, and was stunned to discover how closely Gambino’s This Is America resembled his own release, arguing the chorus is “unmistakably substantially similar, if not practically identical”.
Nwosuocha also alleged that the similarity in lyrical content and delivery was “audible to the average lay person”.
In court papers obtained by TMZ, the plaintiff claims Gambino’s rapping style is also a rip off of his own, as are the lyrics in This Is America’s refrain.
The rapper even employed a musicologist to compare the two tracks, who concluded that “these similarities are likely not coincidences”, the court documents said.
He is demanding significant damages from Gambino, aka Donald Glover, and his song co-writers, Ludwig Goransson, and Jeffery Lamar Williams, better known as Young Thug. Label officials who released the tune, including bosses at JAY-Z’s Roc Nation, are also named as defendants in the case.
Representatives for Gambino and his collaborators have yet to comment on the lawsuit.
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