Bill Withers Is Not Suing Kendrick Lamar, But His Publishing Group Is

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It’s not a “Lovely Day” for Kendrick Lamar. Bill Withers’ publishing group is suing Lamar and his recording home Top Dawg Entertainment for sampling his 1975 song “Don’t Want You To Stay” for 2009’s “I Do This.”

The suit was filed by Mattie Music Group which claims to own the rights Withers’ song which appeared on his Making Music, Making Friends album.

“The musical composition ‘I Do This’ consists of nothing more than new, so-called Rap or Hip Hop lyrics, set to the existing music of ‘Don’t Want You To Stay,'” claims the suit. According to TMZ, Mattie Music Group is suing for damages and demanding that Lamar stop using the track.

“I Do This” appeared on Lamar’s 2009 mixtape The Kendrick Lamar EP that was initially available for free. But the lawsuit claims that the project has since appeared on “various internet music providers” for sale.

Mattie Music Group is obviously out of the loop and are seeking to capitalize off Lamar’s popularity and new money. Any one that has been a fan of Kendrick since the the Kendrick Lamar EP knows that he doesn’t use the song for anything, at least anymore. Ever since Kendrick began releasing retail projects starting with 2011’s Section.80, Kendrick doesn’t even perform tracks from his mixtapes let alone try to sell them.

This isn’t the only lawsuit in Kendrick and TDE‘s hair right now. Billboard reports:

Lamar has been served papers on prior occasions including last July when a freelance photographer sued him for using a photo without permission for his “The Blacker The Berry” digital artwork, a single that appeared on his Grammy-winning set To Pimp a Butterfly. In 2014, Lamar was also hit with a lawsuit by Eric Woolfson and his group,The Alan Parsons Project, who believed he had improperly sampled their song “Old and Wise” without consent on his track “Keisha’s Song (Her Pain),” which appeared on his 2011 Section.80 project.

Take a listen to the songs in question below.