Katy Perry Sued By Christian Rapper For Plagiarism, Witchcraft

Katy Perry‘s Dark Horse has already experienced its share of controversy, but its now become the target of a lawsuit by Christian rapper Flame. The rapper claims that not only is Perry’s song a rip-off of his track Joyful Noise, but her single has tarnished his via its association with the dark arts.

As The Guardian reports, the musos behind Joyful Noise, including Flame, fellow Christian rapper Lecrae, and associates Chike Ojukwu and Emanuel Lambert, filed a suit against Perry, her label, Capitol Records, and others in a St Louis federal court on 1st July for copyright infringement.

The lawsuit claims the 29-year-old singer ripped off their song, then exploited and profited from it. “And by any measure, the devoutly religious message of Joyful Noise has been irreparably tarnished by its association with the witchcraft, paganism, black magic, and Illuminati imagery evoked by the same music in Dark Horse,” the suit also claims, according to a report by The Huffington Post.

“Indeed, the music video of Dark Horse generated widespread accusations of blasphemy and an online petition signed by more than 60,000 demanding removal of an offensive religious image from the video,” it adds, referring to the controversy surrounding an Allah pendant featured in the clip.

The Guardian reports Flame was made aware of the similarity between the two tracks by his DJ, Cho’zyn Boy, who noticed tweets to Flame about the Perry track. The DJ then compiled an audio comparison of Joyful Noise and Dark Horse and posted it to SoundCloud – check it out below.

“What listeners are hearing is Katy Perry’s Dark Horse at 66 beats per minute and they’re hearing Flame’s Joyful Noise at 76 beats per minute,” Cho’zyn Boy explained to Rapzilla. “When they’re separated, they seem a bit different, when you bring them to the same tempo and you just change her pitch down one octave, they’re identical… When things are that similar, it’s hard to dispute.”

Watch: Katy Perry feat Juicy J – Dark Horse

Watch: Flame feat Lecrae & John Reilly – Joyful Noise

Listen: Dark Horse / Joyful Noise Comparison

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