Rock band Yeasayer has dropped a lawsuit against Kendrick Lamar and The Weeknd over the two’s collaborative single “Pray For Me.” According to Billboard and Pitchfork, the group dismissed the suit after determining there was no copyright infringement of their song “Sunrise.”
Yeasayer originally accused K. Dot and Weeknd of stealing a “distinctive choral performance” from their 2007 track. The band claimed “Pray For Me” lifted “male voices singing in their highest registers with animated, pulsing vibrato.”
Producers Doc McKinney and Frank Dukes were also named in the suit. Yeasayer accused the song’s creators of “keeping the same number of voices in the same configuration, brightening the material and temporarily condensing the copied portion while generally retaining the original’s pulsing vibrato.”
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Weeknd, Dukes and Universal Music Group denied the allegations. Lamar, McKinney, Aftermath Entertainment, Interscope Records and Top Dawg Entertainment never responded to the lawsuit and weren’t named in the dismissal.
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“Pray For Me” appeared on Black Panther: The Album, which was curated by Lamar. The song peaked at No. 7 on the Billboard Hot 100.
Revisit “Pray For Me” and compare it to Yeasayer’s “Sunrise” below.
