Ahh, Christian rap. It’s like Christian rock but your religious relatives still don’t want you to listen to it for… some reason they just can’t put their finger on but I’m sure it’s not racism (it is, it totally is racism). But no one listens to Christian rap, not even Christians, is the real point.
But according to a jury, Katy Perry apparently did and it cost her and her record label almost three million dollars American because her song ‘Dark Horse’ sounded too much like Flame’s ‘Joyful Noise’.
The federal jury in L.A. just dished out the damages, and the pop singer will have to pay $550k to Christian rapper Flame. He sued Katy, Dr. Luke and 7 other songwriters on “Dark Horse” for jacking his tune, “Joyful Noise.” Capitol Records was also a defendant, and the jury ordered it to pay the lion’s share … $1.2 million.
In all, Flame will get a total of $2.7 million from all the defendants. The jury said his song was responsible for 22.5 percent of the “Dark Horse” profits.
His Grammy-nominated gospel track came out in 2008 … 6 years before KP dropped “Dark Horse.”
This guy was nominated for a Grammy? I’d never heard of him until I started writing this story. That’s not an exaggeration.
I’m going to let you guys judge this. Here is Flame’s song.
And this is Katy Perry’s.
I’m not a musicologist, but I don’t really hear it. And I’m not just saying that because Katy Perry is super hot and ‘Dark Horse’ isn’t annoying preachy. I think if you get to trial with a jury and your songs sound kind of similar they’re going to sinde with the little guy because they all think they totally got ripped off by Stephen King because they once said “Man, clowns are really creepy” and then bang, twenty years earlier IT got published.