Beyonce’s “Formation” dropped over a year ago, but now the singer is facing a lawsuit for unlawfully sampling the late YouTuber Messy Mya on the track.
The lawsuit comes from the estate of Anthony Barre, who was shot and killed in 2010. The voice of Barre, who posted to YouTube under the name Messy Mya, can be heard opening “Formation” – which features New Orleans as its backdrop – with “What happened after New Orleans?” followed by “B****, I’m back. By popular demand.” The sample is lifted off his 2010 YouTube post, “A 27 Piece Huh?”.
On the release of the single, the murdered star’s estate reached out to Beyonce’s team but did not get a response. Now, according to TMZ, the estate is accusing Beyonce’s camp of ignoring them when they attempted to communicate about the matter. Mya’s estate is suing Queen Bey’s camp for $20 million in back royalties and other damages for the song, which zoomed straight to number one on the Billboard music track on its release.
Last year “That B.E.A.T.” documentary filmmakers, Abteen Bagheri and Chris Black, alleged that Beyonce’s team did ask for permission to use the footage from their doc based on New Orleans’ dance culture, but they had denied the request. Bagheri says he didn’t give Beyonce or the “Formation” video’s director approval to use the footage.
Beyonce’s camp commented on these allegations back in February 2016, telling Entertainment Weekly: “The documentary footage was used with permission and licensed from the owner of the footage. They were given proper compensation. The footage was provided to us by the filmmaker’s production company. The filmmaker is listed in the credits for additional photography direction.”
In response to Beyonce’s statement, Bagheri emailed the Washington Post saying, “Anyone who works in the industry knows that putting out a work is a miracle. There needs to be a unity amongst directors. We need to preserve the sanctity of the craft and champion individual voices. Our work isn’t just b-roll for someone else. It just shouldn’t be considered, whether or not it’s legal. It’s a bad precedent to set.”
Meanwhile, Black tweeted: “Why Melina gotta use clips from our doc?!? Was the budget not big enough to spend a week in New Orleans and actually build with the people.”
At the time, Bagheri had tweeted back at Matsoukas thanking her for her acknowledgement and Black had said they weren’t planning to take legal action.
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Listen to “Formation” and “A 27 Piece Huh?” below.
