Flip through the latest issue of Gulf Weekly.
Things aren’t gravy for an American rapper who’s being sued by an 80s pop icon.
Rick Astley has accused Yung Gravy for imitating his voice from his hit 1987 classic Never Gonna Give You Up without authorisation on the rapper’s recent single Betty (Get Money). The suit, filed in Los Angeles on January 26, alleged that Yung hired Nick ‘Popnick’ Seeley to imitate Astley’s voice, quoting an Instagram video that allegedly sees Popnick discussing how he wanted his vocal to ‘sound identical’ to Astley’s.
“The public could not tell the difference,” the suit added. “The imitation of Mr Astley’s voice was so successful that the public believed it was actually Mr Astley singing.”
According to a Rolling Stone report, Gravy was supposedly granted the rights to use the instrumental of Never Gonna Give You Up in the song, but not to use the actual recording as a sample.
The suit went on to say— “A licence to use the original underlying musical composition does not authorise the stealing of the artist’s voice in the original recording. So, instead, they resorted to theft of Mr Astley’s voice without a licence and without agreement.”
Rick is definitely never gonna give up on this.
