A new lawsuit claims that GloRilla used unlicensed samples from a decades-old New Orleans hip-hop song in her hit songs “Tomorrow” and “Tomorrow 2.”
The case, filed Wednesday in Louisiana federal court, alleges that GloRilla’s tracks “misappropriated many of the recognizable and key protected elements” from “Street of Westbank,” a 1994 song by the group Dog House Posse.
The complaint is light on specifics, but claims that GloRilla copied many elements from the earlier song, including “musical arrangements, percussion tracks, synthesized orchestration, including but not limited to piano, cello, violin, contrabass, and drum set, and tone and melody.”
Beyond the sample itself, the lawsuit says GloRilla’s songs also “mimic and copy the arrangement of ‘Street of Westbank’ by the choice of the instrumentation accompanying the rap lyrics, the choice of when the instruments drop out and reenter and what instruments drop in and reenter.”
A rep for GloRilla did not immediately return a request for comment on the allegations.
While GloRilla broke out with “F.N.F. (Let’s Go),” her biggest hit to date is “Tomorrow 2” – a remix featuring Cardi B that reached No. 9 on the Hot 100 in October and ultimately spent 22 weeks on the chart.
Based on a comparison of the two songs, the alleged sample appears to be the first few notes of “Street of Westbank,” which are then looped throughout the song; a similar-sounding sequence appears to be looped throughout GloRilla’s song. But the extent to which those similarities actually constitute any violation of copyright law will be litigated in court.
Listen to both songs here:
Read the entire lawsuit here:
