Beyoncé is being sued for alleged copyright infringement over a sample in her 2022 smash hit Break My Soul.
Members of Da Showstoppaz filed a lawsuit in Louisiana federal court on Wednesday in which they claimed Big Freedia’s 2014 track Explode, which was sampled on Break My Soul, illegally used “copyrighted lyrics, melody, and musical arrangement” from their 2002 song Release a Wiggle.
The members – Tessa Avie, Keva Bourgeois, Henri Braggs, and Brian Clark – are suing Beyoncé, her husband Jay-Z, Big Freedia and Sony Music, among other defendants.
“Explode infringes on Da Showstoppaz’s Release A Wiggle twelve times, as the infringing phrase ‘release yo’ wiggle’ and several other substantially similar phrases are featured prominently in the song and evenly spread out across Explode’s furious two-minute and forty-seven second runtime,” the lawsuit reads, according to USA Today. “Any reasonable person listening to Release A Wiggle and Explode would conclude that the songs are substantially similar.”
The bounce group alleged that the defendants received substantial profits for Break My Soul, Beyoncé’s album Renaissance, the Renaissance World Tour and her subsequent concert film while they have “received nothing – no acknowledgment, no credit, no remuneration of any kind”.
Da Showstoppaz want to be credited on both Explode and Break My Soul and receive royalties for future uses of both songs. They are also requesting damages in relation to the profits Beyoncé and Big Freedia have made from the tracks already.
