Singer-songwriter Childish Gambino is being sued over claims that he stole the Grammy award-winning song This Is America from another artist.
Emelike Nwosuocha, known as Kidd Wes, has blamed Gambino, real name is Donald Glover, for copying his single Made in America.
The artist claims Gambino’s This is America’is a copy of his track, which was released on SoundCloud in 2016 and registered with the US Copyright Office in May 2017.
According to court documents filed in New York, he said the “lyrical theme, content and structure” of the two songs’ choruses are “glaringly similar.”
The rapper also employed a musicologist to compare the two tracks, who concluded that “these similarities are likely not coincidences”, the court documents added.
This Is America became one of the most discussed songs of the year because of its social commentary.
It also made history by becoming the first rap track to win song of the year at the Grammy Awards.
But in court documents, Nwosuocha said there was a “substantial similarity” between the track and his own.
He claimed the songs shared a “distinct and unique vocal cadence, delivery, rhythm, timing [and] phrasing.
Nwosuocha also claimed that the choruses of Made In America and This Is America were written in the same “metre.”
Gambino is yet to respond to the claims.
This is not the first time he has been accused of plagerising the song. In 2018, a hip-hop blogger named Akademiks noted a similarity between the song and American Pharaoh by New York rapper Jase Harley.
