Photo Credit: Quavo’s Instagram
Quavo faces a copyright infringement lawsuit over his 2018 track, ‘Bubble Gum,’ from his debut solo album.
Former Migos rapper Quavo is facing a copyright infringement lawsuit filed in California on Friday by Lamount London, known professionally as rapper L.Mont. London alleges Quavo copied parts of his own track “Bubblegum,” which he says he wrote in 2015, in 2018’s “Bubble Gum,” released on Quavo’s debut solo album, Quavo Huncho.
London claims his song was registered with the US copyright office back in 2015 when he released it, and that it was released on all major streaming platforms. Quavo would therefore have had ample opportunity to have heard the earlier track — but London also says he performed as an opening act for 2 Chainz and Migos, whose members included Quavo, Takeoff, and Offset, in New Orleans.
It was after that show that L.Mont claims he attended an afterparty with Quavo and the other members of Migos, where he gave them a demo CD featuring the allegedly copied track, hoping he would be able to collaborate with the other rappers in the future. The lawsuit says Quavo “accepted the CD” from London and that he would consider working with him in the future.
But the collaboration never came to fruition, and L.Mont says Quavo “without express authorization” copied protected elements of the song in his own track of the same name. Quavo’s “Bubble Gum” was released and distributed by Universal Music Group, which is named as a co-defendant, through Quality Control Music, Capitol Records, and Motown.
“Defendants, without authority, have willfully copied and sampled many protected elements of the Plaintiff’s copyrights and further infringed upon those copyrights by acts of reproduction, distribution, publish, display, and unauthorized creation of derivative works,” the lawsuit adds.
London’s lawsuit seeks an injunction to prevent further distribution of the song, as well as damages and attorney fees.
