Entertainment
Yung Gravy is being sued by Rick Astley for allegedly stealing his song “Never Gonna Give You Up.”
Yung Gravy is being sued by Rick Astley for allegedly stealing his song “Never Gonna Give You Up.”
According to TMZ, Rick Astley is suing Yung Gravy for using the lyrics from his 1987 smash song “Never Gonna Give You Up” in Gravy’s 2022 song “Betty (Get Money).”
After graduating from Mayo High School in 2014, Yung Gravy, real name Matthew Hauri, began to gain notoriety during his junior year of college at UW Madison.
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According to Astley, Gravy and his producers “conspired to add a purposeful and almost imperceptibly similar impersonation of Mr. Astley’s voice throughout the song,” according to TMZ.
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According to Billboard, the lawsuit claims that the interpolation sounds more like a sample and accuses Yung Gravy of intentionally mimicking Astley’s voice infringing upon his right to notoriety.
“The public was unable to distinguish between them. The complaint claims that the imitation of Mr. Astley’s voice was so convincing that the general public thought it was Mr. Astley singing. Gravy recruited Popnick to purportedly try to “sound identical” to Astley since he allegedly had permission to use the underlying musical composition, or interpolating, but not a license for an actual sample.
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According to reports, the 1980s icon is suing the soundalike for millions of dollars, citing a 1988 court decision in which Bette Midler successfully sued Ford for advertisements featuring a Midler imitation.
In 2018, Gravy told the Post Bulletin that his music is primarily intended to be dance music, and that he uses obscure funk and soul samples to give his beats the perfect amount of “wave.”
He still follows this routine: Gravy chooses the samples, and his producers use them to create beats. “Awesome stuff. I could characterize many of the samples I use as being wavy.
These vintage soul and funk sounds don’t get enough attention. Kids today who listen to my songs have never experienced that. To give them that is cool “said he.