Kanye West Sued Over 'Ultralight Beam' Prayer Sample — Get All The Details

kanye-sued

Kanye West can't catch a break.

Ye is now being sued for asking the wrong mom for permission to sample a viral clip of her daughter praying in his hit "Ultralight Beam," featured on his 2016 album The Life of Pablo . According to TMZ , Andrew and Shirley Green, who are recently filed a lawsuit against the "I Love It" rapper, say "they are the legal guardians of the little girl, Natalie, whose voice you hear in the [song's] opening seconds." As fans know, "the audio was taken from a viral video of Natalie excitedly reciting a prayer" when she was four-years-old back in 2016. However, in documents obtained by TMZ, "the Greens say they adopted Natalie in December 2012, but Kanye's team reached out to Natalie's biological mom, Alice Johnson, to get permission to use Natalie's voice." Adding that, Alice has no legal right to give Kanye permission to use their daughter's voice.

Not only that, the Greens claim that Kanye's team never sent a written license agreement or payment to Alice for using their daughter's voice, so they are seeking profits from "Ultralight Beam" as well as unspecified damages.

News of the Ye's lawsuit came amid news of his alleged identity theft. The "All Mine" rapper's signature was reportedly forged on a New York Fashion Week document that cost German fashion designer Philipp Plein nearly $1,000,000. Sources told TMZ a former associate of Ye's "secretly contacted Philipp Plein," whose NYFW show is Monday, February 11, misrepresenting himself as a formal representative of Kanye's, and began negotiations for the 41-year-old rapper to perform at Philipp's forthcoming show.

Not only did the fashion designer fall for the scam, booking the fake Ye for his fashion show, Philipp paid him a $900,000 advance. If that wasn't bad enough, the alleged forger/ Ye impersonator signed Kanye's name on the performance contract, which released the funds to a wired to an account that was promptly emptied, leaving Philipp high and dry. As for the guy behind the whole scheme, he's said to be a "former friend" of West's and an associate of G.O.O.D Music.

Amid reports that Ye was set to perform the Philipp show, the rapper's wife Kim Kardashian tweeted : "He’s not performing at any fashion show this season. Just a rumor."

A rep for Philipp Plein later issued a statement addressing the alleged scam. "We regret to confirm that Kanye West will not be performing at our fashion show this Monday," read the statement. "We were beyond excited to work with him but unfortunately an individual pretended to be part of his management team and acted without Kanye’s knowledge, capitalizing on a former friendship with him. Unfortunately we too were affected by this misrepresentation. We have recently been in contact with Kanye’s official team and are releasing this statement in unison to clarify that there has not been any misconduct on any of our parts. We hope to collaborate with Kanye West in the future and we look forward to our 20th Anniversary show this Monday evening."

Photo: Getty Images


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