Kanye West Faces ‘Donda 2’ Sample Lawsuit Over ‘LORD LIFT ME UP’ Song

Ye (formerly Kanye West) has been sued for allegedly sampling a 1975 soul song without permission on his 2022 album Donda 2, marking the latest in a long line of similar copyright lawsuits against the controversial rapper.

A legal complaint filed Thursday (Sept. 4) in federal court claims the Donda 2 track “LORD LIFT ME UP” includes a blatant sample of the song “Just Out of My Reach” by soul artist Sam Dees. The lawsuit is brought by an entity called The GRC Trust on behalf of Ginn Music Group, an Atlanta-based catalog company that owns Dees’ publishing.

“At no point…did defendants obtain authorization from GRC to use the composition in connection with the infringing work,” reads the complaint. “Defendants continue to exploit and receive monies from the infringing work, respectively, in violation of GRC’s rights in his composition.”

The lawsuit brings copyright infringement claims against Ye, his company Yeezy LLC and the rapper Vory (Tavoris Javon Hollins), who is featured on “LORD LIFT ME UP.”

Also named in the complaint are London-based tech firm Kano Computing and its founder, Alex Klein. Kano partnered with Ye to release the rapper’s branded Stem Player device, which was the only way to listen to Donda 2 when the album was first released in February 2022 (Ye released the LP on streaming for the first time just this year).

GRC is asking for a judge to enter a legal injunction against Ye and award the publishing company “all profits of defendants … plus all losses of GRC, plus any other monetary advantage gained by the defendants through their infringement.”

Reps for Ye, Vory and Kano did not immediately return requests for comment on Thursday.

Ye has been sued repeatedly over the course of his career for supposedly using uncleared samples. Such lawsuits have been brought over the years by everyone from the estate of Donna Summer to a pastor whose sermon was allegedly sampled on the first Donda LP.

Thursday’s lawsuit is the second to claim infringement on the Donda 2 album. The first — brought by publisher Ultra International over an alleged sample of the 1986 Marshall Jefferson house track “Move Your Body” on the song “Flowers” — was confidentially settled in 2023.