Lil Nas X has been sued by a California music publisher for $25 million for allegedly stealing Bobby Caldwell’s 1982 song “Carry On,” Reuters reports.
In a complaint filed on Wednesday, The Music Force LLC said X used aspects of Caldwell’s “Carry On” without permission, claiming the 20-year-old rapper and his producer were “motivated by greed and malicious intent” as X’s track of the same name has racked up four million views on YouTube since July.
Lil Nas X’s new record label, Sony Music, is also named in the suit because the company found it “far more important” to bag millions in revenue from his career rather than properly vet his music.
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“Sony elected to take no action to stop this illegal, unauthorized infringement as it was far more important to Sony to preserve its opportunity to enjoy millions of dollars of revenues from the success of the career of X,” the lawsuit alleges.
The plaintiff is seeking $25 million—$10 million in damages and an additional $15 million in punitive damages for “confusion in the marketplace.”
The company claims Lil Nas X’s “greed and malicious intent” has devalued Caldwell’s original song.
Meanwhile, his “Old Town Road” track recently tied the record for most weeks spent at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. X is currently rocking the crown for the longest No. 1 single in the chart’s 61-year history, per Complex.
Since the track is showing no signs of falling out of style anytime soon, Lil Nas X continues to drop remixes. Meanwhile, hip-hop veteran Lil Wayne previously shared some tips with the budding hip-hop star on how to navigate his new-found fame.
“Stay focused. When you break that record, make sure it’s not a record to you,” Wayne stated. “Make sure you don’t even realize it nor recognize it at all. Put that in your head that someone else broke that record and you want to break their record. Plain and simple. Because I can’t even tell you if I was No. 1 on the charts because it never mattered. The only thing that ever should matter, bro, is your next song.”
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