Kanye West Sued By Texas Pastor Over ‘Donda’ Song “Come to Life”

Well, this is interesting. Kanye West, now known by the name Ye, is being sued by a Texas pastor.

Bishop David Paul Moten claims that the rapper sampled one of his sermons without his permission for the 2021 song “Come to Life.” First reported by TMZ, Moten stated that the song uses his religious speech for 70 seconds of the track, which is over 20 percent of the five-minute-and-ten-second song.

According to Moten, this is just the latest example of “willfully and egregiously sampling sound recordings of others without consent or permission.” For this “egregiously sampling,” Moten is not only suing West but also Universal Music Group (UMG) Recordings, Def Jam Recordings, and G.O.O.D Music.

The news of this suit comes after UMG was sued over a sampling dispute in West’s 2010 song “Power.” The sample in question is prog-rock King Crimson’s “21st Century Schizoid Man.” Declan Colgan Music Ltd owns the original song and filed the suit in the U.K. The organization has claimed that UMG “failed, and continues to fail, to comply with its royalty accounting obligations.”

Read more about the “Power” lawsuit HERE and check out “Come to Life” below.

Photo by Rich Fury/VF20/Getty Images for Vanity Fair