- Mark Savage
- BBC Music Correspondent
The Weeknd is one of the biggest recording artists of the last decade.
Two musicians who sued The Weeknd for stealing one of their songs have reached a settlement with Starr to end the lawsuit.
Saniel Fox and Henry Strange created the 2018 song “Call Out My Name” by copying an “atmospheric and melancholic” track the singer called Vibeking.
When the lawsuit was filed in 2021, two attorneys said the two songs contained similar “lead guitar and vocal hooks.”
The Weeknd denied the allegations. Terms of the settlement were not disclosed.
“Both parties are still in the process of formal proceedings, execution and consummation,” Fox and Strange’s attorneys said in documents filed in federal court in Los Angeles on Friday.
Call Out My Name was the only single released from The Weeknd’s 2018 EP My Dear Melancholy to reach the top 10 in both the US and UK.
Although in a different key than Vibeking, Fox and Strange (as electro house duo Epikker) have noted some similarities between the two songs.
“Both works are 6/8 meters, which is not very common in popular music,” they said in their initial court filings.
“Both pieces are performed at a similar tempo. Both pieces also use characteristics of electronica, ambience, pop, hip-hop, rock and R&B to achieve a particularly atmospheric and melancholic sound. doing.”
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Unusually for a copyright lawsuit, the musicians claimed to have evidence that The Weeknd had heard their song before writing Call Out My Name.
They say they sent the track to The Weeknd’s DJ and playback engineer Eric White in 2015, citing an alleged email in which he recorded the star’s reaction to the song as “it’s on fire.” bottom.
Nearly a year later, White contacted Strange again. “I sent [The Weeknd] A track I made a while ago. He heard it and liked it. But nothing happened,” his email allegedly said.
Shortly thereafter, White reportedly sent another update, telling him: [The Weeknd] Our production team wrote the track. nice? Or do you have another idea? Just “Hey, I don’t want to say” [Strange] I wrote this when he didn’t know you. ”
Strange replied that The Weeknd had met him. [the] Drake Tour” and “I Know Him”.
Despite this, the musicians claimed they were never asked for permission to use or license their songs.
They asked the court for a share of past and future royalties for the song, as well as legal fees.
The Weeknd, whose real name is Abel Tesfaye, denied the allegations, but didn’t get a chance to answer in detail because the case never went to trial.
Lawyers for Foxx and Strange have asked the court to notify the settlement, cancel all future hearings, and dismiss the lawsuit.
The lawsuit also names The Weeknd co-writers Adam Feeney and Nicholas Jaar, his producer Frank Dukes, record label Universal Music, and streaming services including Spotify, Apple Music and YouTube. had been
