Dua Lipa ‘Levitating’ Copyright Case Over ‘Talk Box’ Ends With Settlement
Billboard ·
The agreement will finally resolve the last of several copyright lawsuits over Lipa's smash hit, which spent 77 weeks on the Hot 100.
Dua Lipa has reached a settlement to end a copyright lawsuit over “Levitating,” fully resolving years of litigation over the megahit song.
The case, filed in 2023 by a producer named Bosko Kante , claimed that Lipa had paid to use his “talk box” recording in the original song, but had failed to secure his approval to use it in later remixes, like the even-more-popular version featuring DaBaby .
In court papers filed Monday (Nov. 9), attorneys for the two sides said they had reached an agreement to end the entire lawsuit permanently. The two sides had recently told the judge they were “discussing whether a potential resolution of this action is possible.”
Specifics of the agreement, such as monetary terms or whether credits on the songs would change, were not shared in court filings. Neither side’s lawyers immediately returned requests for more details or comment on the resolution of the case.
Monday’s settlement will finally end more than four years of continuous litigation over “Levitating,” Lipa’s breakout hit that reached No. 2 on the Hot 100 after debuting in 2020 and ultimately spent a whopping 77 weeks on the song chart.
In March 2022, a Florida reggae band called Artikal Sound System claimed Lipa stole the song’s core hook from their lesser-known 2017 tune “Live Your Life.” Days later, songwriters L. Russell Brown and Sandy Linzer accused Lipa of ripping off the melody from their disco tracks “Wiggle and Giggle All Night” and “Don Diablo.”
A year later, Kante filed his case centered on elements of the song created via talk box — a decades-old device that allows musicians to apply speech sounds onto the sounds of an instrument. After he contributed talk box clips to songs by Kanye West and Big Boi , Kante said a producer of “Levitating” reached out to ask him to add one to the upcoming song.
Kante said he reached an oral agreement that his materials could be used in “Levitating” but that the deal didn’t cover any further remixes — including the DaBaby remix and another version featuring Madonna and Missy Elliott .
But one by one, the lawsuits over “Levitating” have fallen. Artikal Sound System dropped their case in 2024 after a judge ruled there was no sign that anyone involved in creating “Levitating” had ever even heard the earlier song — a key requirement in copyright lawsuits.
Then last year, the disco case was dismissed after a judge ruled that “Levitating” shared only basic musical building blocks with the earlier songs. The judge said the songs were both “pop with a disco feel,” but that such a vague style was protected by copyright law.
Now, more than six years after “Levitating” was first released, the final pending lawsuit has been resolved via settlement.