Kanye West no longer has to answer for allegedly sampling a Boogie Down Productions classic without permission, as a lawsuit against him for exactly that was settled this week.
According to court records viewed by HipHopDX, a stipulation and order of voluntary dismissal of the suit was filed on Monday (August 19).
According to Billboard, the only aspect of the settlement made public was that each side would have to pay its own legal bills.
Several defendants were not a part of the settlement.
The suit was filed against Ye in 2022 over a Boogie Down Productions sample on “Life of the Party,” his collaboration with André 3000 from Donda.
It was filed not by BDP leader KRS-One, but by Phase One Network, the company that owns the rights to Boogie Down Productions’ iconic 1986 Bridge Wars diss “South Bronx,” which was allegedly sampled without permission.
According to TMZ, the company claims Ye and his team initially reached out to clear the sample, but an agreement was never reached. However, that apparently didn’t stop the Chicago native from retracting his offer and using the sample anyway.
“Life of the Party” was initially leaked by Drake in September 2021 during his feud with Kanye West, before being released exclusively on Ye’s $200 Stem Player the following month. It later arrived on streaming services as a bonus song on the deluxe edition of Donda.
The company claimed “Life of the Party” helped boost sales of the Stem Player, which moved around 11,000 units in its first 24 hours, generating roughly $2.2 million. The company was seeking a share of the profits while blocking further use of the “South Bronx” sample.
In other Ye-related legal news, Adidas recently emerged victorious in its legal battle with investors over the rapper’s antisemitic comments and other inappapriate behavior during their Yeezy partnership.
In court documents reviewed by HipHopDX, a judge sided with the sports giant last week and dismissed the lawsuit filed against them, which accused the company of failing to protect investors by ignoring the potential damage caused by Ye.
Judge Karin J. Immergut ruled that HRSA-ILA Funds’ complaint contained insufficient evidence and failed to prove that Adidas had misled investors regarding its lucrative yet volatile partnership with West, which ended in October 2022 following a string of antisemitic and other racially offensive statements from the rapper.
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“Certainly, that [Kanye] allegedly engaged in such behavior while working with Adidas is troubling,” said Judge Karin J. Immergut. “This Court does not condone what [West] allegedly did. But the question before this Court is not whether to admonish [him] or hold Adidas accountable for [his] conduct.
“This Court is faced with a precise legal question: has [HRSA-ILA Funds] sufficiently pleaded facts showing that Adidas misled investors and thereby committed federal securities fraud? On the current record before this Court, the answer is no,” she concluded.
Filed in an Oregon court last year, the lawsuit accused Adidas of failing to “publicly disclose offensive and inappropriate acts committed between 2013 and 2018” by Kanye West, as well as the company’s internal concerns about his behavior.
As a result, investors claimed the German company “misled investors and committed federal securities fraud.”
