The musicians suing The Weeknd have reached a settlement agreement with the Canadian artist.
In 2021, Suniel Fox and Henry Strange filed a case against The Weeknd over his 2018 song “Call Out My Name”, claiming he’d copied their “atmospheric and melancholic” track called “Vibeking”.
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The The Weeknd had denied the copyright claim and allegations that the songs featured similar “lead guitar and vocal hooks.”
According to the BBC, terms of the settlement have not been publicly disclosed, but the plaintiff’s lawyers said in a filing on Friday, “The parties are still in the process of formalizing, executing, and consummating.”
In their suit, Fox and Strange noted a number of similarities between The Weeknd’s track and their own.
“Both works are in a 6/8 meter that is less common in popular music,” they claimed. “Both works are played at a similar tempo. And both works use features of electronica, ambience, pop, hip-hop, rock, and R&B to achieve a particularly atmospheric and melancholic sound.”
They also claimed that The Weeknd had heard their song before creating his own, claiming that they had sent the track to the artist’s DJ in 2015, and that he’d said in response, “It’s fire.”
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About a year later, White got in touch with Strange again and wrote, “I sent [The Weeknd] that track u made a while ago. He listened and liked it. But nothing ever happened.”
White later allegedly sent another email saying, “Just gonna tell [The Weeknd] that our production team wrote the track. Cool? Or u have another idea? Just don’t wanna say ‘hey, [Strange] wrote this’ when he doesn’t know u.”
The case never ended up going to trial.
“Call Out My Name” was the first and only single released from The Weeknd’s EP My Dear Melancholy in 2018, and reached the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100.
