Photo credit: Sharon Alagna
Kendrick Lamar has arguably had one of the greatest starts to a hip hop career in history. His first album was commercially and critically successful but did not receive the expected attention at the Grammy’s. His sophomore album was more financially successful and received eleven grammy nominations. He has managed to stay out of the media for negative reasons unlike many of his counterparts.
This year he performed at the Global Citizen Festival , Austin City Limits Festival , and Coachella.
But recently according to PITCHFORK, TDE, the label Kendrick is signed to, lost a copyright to Canadian rapper, Jonathan Emile. In 2015, he released a song titled “Heaven Help Dem” which featured a verse from Kendrick Lamar. Not long afterward, Emile was hit with copyright takedown notices and it was removed from Youtube and Soundcloud.
In return, Jonathan Emile sued for damages in small claims court against TDE, and distributor Interscope records, and Universal Music Group. Last month the court ruled in Emile’s favor and awarded him with $8,600 Canadian currency, which is about $6,400 in US currency plus five percent interest.
In another interview, Emile said that he secured the feature with Lamar after contacting his label and letting them know what the song is about. “We paid Kendrick Lamar for a feature, and once we paid them, they basically stopped communicating with us altogether,” he stated.
Although the song was eventually cleared, Emile said he sued “to clear his name because a lot of folks did think that the Kendrick verse was stolen” He added that he lost “the momentum to promote the song”. He concluded by saying, “We did what we had to do to get the judgment.”
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