Kanye West, Kid Cudi and Ty Dolla Sign Sued Over Vocal Sample in Kids See Ghosts Song

Kanye West and Kid Cudi are both influential artists that have been seen in popular media for years now. “Kids See Ghosts” the album created by rappers, Kanye West and Kid Cudi released in the summer of 2018 has been a big hit ever since. It features other artists like Pusha-T, Ty Dolla Sign and Yasiin Bey creating a popular cohesive record. Kids See Ghosts made their debut performance at Tyler the Creator’s festival Camp Flog Gnaw in November 2018 and has been a legendary duo ever since.

Kids See Ghosts has been accused of stealing the pop singer, Lorde’s set. Lorde performed in a clear rectangular cube in 2017 at Coachella. Kids See Ghosts performed in a cube much like Lord’s at their debut performance at Camp Flog Gnaw. The set designer, Es Devlin explained that the cubic platform is nothing new and has been used for the English National Opera. The set design of Kids See Ghosts has not been the only thing they’ve been accused of stealing from another artist.

The first fifteen seconds of “Freeee (Ghost Town Pt.2)” is claimed to be Ronald Oslin Bobb-Semple’s voice. Ronald Oslin Bobb-Semple is an actor who has been performing Marcus Garvey’s speech for many decades and the actor’s voice is featured without permission on the track Freeee (Ghost Town Pt.2). Marcus Garvey was a political leader who helped shape the Civil Rights movement and his legacy is now living on through Bobb-Semple performance piece. The track uses a part of Bobb-Semple’s 2002 performance, “The Spirit of Marcus Garvey (Garvey speaks to an all-Black audience)” without his permission or consideration. According to Blast, Ronald Oslin Bobb-Semple is suing Kanye West, Kid Cudi, Ty Dolla Sign, Def Jam and Universal Music in order to receive his rightful cut from his stolen voice sample. Kanye West, Kid Cudi, and Ty Dolla Sign have not made any statements about the lawsuit and have remained silent about the issue. Pitchfork and many other big platforms like HypeBeast are currently covering the complicated lawsuit against Kids See Ghosts and have reached out to Kanye West and Kid Cudi for further comments.