Drake may need advice in retrial. The Canadian superstar is named in a lawsuit alongside Chris Brown, alleging that their 2019 hit “No Guidance” copies a 2016 track, Tykeiya’s “I Got It,” as reported Music Business Worldwide. “No Guidance” peaked at number five on the Billboard Hot 100 and topped several charts such as Hot R&B Songs and R&B/Hip-hop Airplay, while surpassing one billion streams on Spotify.
The singers have already the subject of a trial which was abandoned in 2022but the new complaint comes from other parties. Tykeiya Dore and Marc Stephens are suing Drake, Brown and the song’s other writers (Nija Charles, Michee Lebrun and Tyler Bryant) and producers (Anderson Hernandez, Joshua Huizar, Teddy Walton and Noah Shebib).
The complaint, filed in the Federal District Court of New Jersey, is published in its entirety on the website of Music Business Worldwide. She claims that the writers took the hook from Tykeiya’s song “I Got It” and changed the lyrics from “I got it” to “you got it”. Additionally, the plaintiffs claim that Dore’s uncle, Jesse Spruils, sent “I Got It” to one of the writers of “No Guidance,” Nija Charles, and that Spruils confronted Charles after the release of “No Guidance” about the similarities, and that Charles blocked him on social media.
Dore and Stephens are seeking $5 million in damages. The lawsuit also names YouTube as a defendant, accusing the company of defamation of Mr. Stephens. The latter claims that he filed requests to take down “No Guidance” and that YouTube responded by calling Mr. Stephens’ claims fraudulent, ultimately removing his channel (it was later reinstated).
“It is impossible not to hear that the two songs are substantially similar,” the lawsuit reads.
Listen to Tykeiya’s “No Guidance” and “I Got It” for yourself below:
