Dua Lipa is facing a fresh copyright lawsuit over her hit “Levitating,” with a music producer claiming that the singer used his “talk box” recording in remixed versions of the song without his permission.

In a lawsuit filed in federal court against Lipa and Warner Music on Monday (July 31), Bosko Kante says he created a talk box track for use in Lipa’s original version of the song but that the creators of “Levitating” had no right to use it in subsequent remixes, like the even-more-popular version featuring DaBaby.

“Plaintiff made numerous attempts to resolve this matter short of litigation, but such efforts were unsuccessful, due to Defendants’ unwillingness to cooperate or accept responsibility for this blatant infringement of Plaintiff’s copyrights,” Kante’s lawyers wrote.

Kante says in the lawsuit that he was approached in 2014 by Stephen Kozmeniuk, one of producers of “Levitating,” about creating a talk box performance that would be incorporated into Lipa’s song and eventually reached an oral agreement that the track could be used in “Levitating.”

Kante adds that the deal expressly didn’t cover any further remixes beyond the original release – meaning Lipa and Warner Music didn’t have the right to use it on the DaBaby remix, nor on another version by The Blessed Madonna featuring Madonna and Missy Elliott.

“All three remixes sampled and incorporated a greater amount of plaintiff’s work than that used in the original version,” Kante’s lawyers wrote. “Defendants did not seek or receive any authorization or permission to use the composition or sound recording of plaintiff’s work from plaintiff.”

The latest case, which says Kante is entitled to more than $20 million, is the third copyright lawsuit against Lipa over “Levitating,” a superhit track that spent 77 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 chart following its debut in 2020.

(Photo: Hugo Comte)

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