In 2021, Dua Lipa watched her ‘Future Nostalgia‘ hit ‘Levitating‘ live up to its namesake on the Hot 100 when it soared into Billboard history books for becoming the longest-running top 10 hit ever by a female artist.
And while that unprecedented chart triumph got its fair share of laud from fans and admirers alike, there have been a few who have withheld applause – namely those who have attempted to take the GRAMMY winner to court on allegations of copyright infringement.
Just two months after learning the second case of that ilk was dismissed by a U.S. District Judge, another multimillion-dollar claim against the Stephen Kozmeniuk and Stuart Price-produced bop has arisen.
Will the third time be the charm for the takedown of Dua’s ‘Levitating’? Producer Bosko Kante certainly hopes so as he took to the Los Angeles courts at the top of the month to file suit against the songstress and her label, Warner Music Group, on the grounds that they unlawfully used a recording made with his talk box in remixes of the single.
“All three remixes sampled and incorporated a greater amount of plaintiff’s work than that used in the original version,” the suit alleges. “Defendants did not seek or receive any authorization or permission to use the composition or sound recording of plaintiff’s work from plaintiff.”
According to his legal representation, a spoken agreement exists between Kante and creators of the original version of ‘Levitating’ but the permission of use of his talk box recording did not extend to the hit’s subsequent remixes. Said remixes include the Madonna and Missy Elliott-assisted version as well as that which enlisted help from embattled rapper DaBaby.
Billboard reported Bosko’s lawyers say he “made numerous attempts to resolve this matter short of litigation, but such efforts were unsuccessful, due to Defendants’ unwillingness to cooperate or accept responsibility for this blatant infringement of Plaintiff’s copyrights.”
Kante seeks a sum slightly north of $20 million in damages.