Rodney O is suing over allegedly unpaid royalties for Future and Metro Boomin’s “Like That,” while Kendrick Lamar is embroiled in another Drake diss track lawsuit.
Rapper Rodney O is suing Future, Metro Boomin, and Kendrick Lamar for unjustly underpaid royalties from the vicious Drake and J. Cole diss song “Like That.” Rodney filed his complaint on Wednesday, accusing Barry White’s estate and Epic Records of failing to pay him royalties for the song.
He was contacted by TMZ to explain his decision to sue all three of the rappers on the song. According to Rodney, Future’s work was the only part of the song that Epic Records showed him a week prior to its release.
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“Until someone called and said, ‘I heard Kendrick is on that record,’ I didn’t even know he was on it,” he remarked. “No, I have the record,” I replied. The music lasted around two minutes, and he isn’t there. Rodney claims that only Future and Metro Boomin’s teams were permitted to hear the Kendrick version of the song prior to its release, and that the recording he received was the one “intended for release.”
Despite this, Rodney maintains that he should have been given the opportunity to hear the song because it samples his 1988 song “Everlasting Bass,” particularly in light of Kendrick’s feud with Drake. Declare that Drake and I got along. Give me the choice to respond “yes” or “no.” […] They simply made a mistake that isn’t showing us any respect. Doing that to traditional artists is chilly.
Rodney claims that being left out of the song’s Grammy nominations has further irritated him. How are you able to do that? Many traditional artists are treated with absolutely little regard. […] I don’t even want to hear the record at a moment when I ought to be rejoicing.
Rodney’s action against Kendrick, Future, and Metro was followed by a lawsuit against Barry White’s estate, which initially accused him of copyright infringement. Since his song’s release in the late 1980s, Rodney claims there have never been any problems with the estate; nevertheless, the estate became interested in it once it gained popularity again because to its sampling in “Like That.”
According to Rodney, “the song has been out for 35 years and [there has] never been an infringement claim.” He maintains that Kanye West’s (also unapproved) “Like That” remix is the only instance in which an unapproved Barry White sample actually appears.
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