Did Dua Lipa ACTUALLY Plagiarize Levitating?

do these songs sound the same to you [Music] alipa the english pop singer is getting sued because of the similarities between her 2020 song levitating and live your life a 2017 song by the south florida reggae band article sound system now i am not a lawyer i'm a music theorist but listening back to the two songs it seems like this is an open and shut case of copyright infringement or at least it seems that way both songs are in the key of b minor and they share a similar tempo of about 100 beats per minute they're built from similar but not the same four chord chord loops and a minor key they both start on b minor seven the one minor seven then go to f sharp minor seven the five minor seven then e minor seven the four minor seven following that levitating returns to the b minor seven but live your life stays on the e minor seven for the last bar this use of one minor seven and five minor seven and four minor seven in a dance style is not particularly noteworthy elo's evil woman more or less uses the same chords but the melodies of live your life and levitating are nearly identical the same notes of the key are being targeted on the same beats with the same rhythm a rhythm which is called the charleston a dotted eighth followed by a sixteenth note followed by arrest the first beat in both songs emphasizes the five of the key f sharp the third beat emphasizes the four of the key e the first beat of the following measure also emphasizes the four of the key e the next beat stays on the for the key e although the underlying chord change is different [Music] the simple pattern on the charleston rhythm of five four four four repeats again in the following two bars although in the dualipa the song's hook i'm levitating breaks the pattern somewhat on the final two beats of the four bar chorus there are some pretty significant lyrical similarities as well the rhyme scheme is almost the same the phrase all night appears verbatim in both choruses with the same rhythm and on the same note of the key so yeah because the two songs are constructed in a similar way they sound essentially the same or at least in this chorus section it does seem like article sound system has a point here with this lawsuit it would seem that way right but i don't think they do first of all the rhythm that's being used is so common it has a name it's called the charleston mostly white reggae band from south florida did not invent the charleston rhythm four years ago it's been a common trope in 70s style dance melodies like the jacksons blame it on the boogie for [Music] there example plenty of other songs which use this rhythm in a dance context including a song which was released a year before live your life in 2016 which has the charleston rhythm the 544 melodic arc a similar minor key chord progression and near identical rhyme scheme it's of course the outro to dnce's cake by the ocean the key is different and the melody is displaced by two beats but it works very easily in a mashup [Music] so there we go live your life was definitely not the first to do this kind of melody in fact the more damning evidence comes from an even earlier song outcast's 1988 song rosa parks [Music] it's the exact same melody with the charleston rhythm outlining skill degrees five four four four at the same tempo if you adjust for the key it's exactly the same song as both live your life and levitating [Music] pretty damn identical all three of them people have been pointing out the similarity of outcast rosa parks as well as the jacksons blame it on the boogie to do alipa's levitating for the past couple of years now and dua dualipa herself cited outcast as an inspiration for her album future nostalgia so when you take a look at the actual text of the lawsuit that article sound system filed and read that it is highly unlikely levitating was created independently from live your life i have some doubts as of this video the only way that you could listen to the song live your life is on a soundcloud link an unaffiliated youtube video free booting the song and an out of stock physical cd you can purchase from amazon the lawsuit claims that it was released on streaming services and it may have once been available that way but it isn't any longer numerous websites have reported that the song reached number two on the reggae charts but that's been difficult to corroborate except for a facebook post from 2017. it seems to me that article sound system through various press releases and the lawsuit itself is trying to make it seem like the song was a lot bigger than it ever actually was because it needs to prove that dua lipa and her co-songwriters had heard live your life prior to writing levitating now you can't prove that dua lipa didn't take inspiration from live your life although it's very unlikely especially considering that the genesis of levitating has already been very publicly documented a 2020 episode of the podcast song exploder documented the creative process of writing levitating from demos to voice memos duolip's producer kaz tells the story of purchasing a vintage roland vp 330 synth and literally the first thing i played was like what turned into levitating he took that initial idea of that four chord loop b minor seven f sharp minor seven e minor seven b minor seven and then brought it into a writing session for duda lipa there dua lipa improvised melodies on top of the scratch demo which is a very common way of writing pop songs you just improvise to find something that fits almost immediately we went into the melody of and then you kind of hear sarah in the background going oh my gosh [Music] when she was improvising this verse melody she probably wasn't thinking about stella soleil's version of kiss kiss [Music] but it is very reminiscent of it same thing probably when she was improvising and landed on what is outcast rosa parks she was like instant on the melody [Music] from these voice memos it's pretty clear that one levitating did not come from live your life and two both songs drew on prior art things that other musicians had done beforehand like for example outcast what's fascinating about this lawsuit is that it does not even attempt to do any kind of musicological analysis usually with lawsuits like this like in the ed sheeran marvin gaye case the plaintiff will make their case musically like what we just did they'll go through on a technical level explaining to the court why the songs sound the same that kind of analysis is explicitly missing from the court documents and i think the reason for that is because they probably couldn't find a musicologist willing to go to bat for them willing to stake their professional careers on defending article sound system i first saw the example of outcasts rosa parks in a video put together by the berkeley professor and musicologist wayne marshall in his twitter thread he opines that there is money in this game but i will debunk a spurious copyright claim for fun and for free levitating was released in 2020 and rick beato had a thought on why it took so long for there to be a lawsuit filed when you're dealing with a big corporation or big artist it's hard to find lawyers that are willing to take on a case of copyright infringement i don't think musicologists and music theorists have wanted to touch this either because the professionals know that there is always prior art and in the wake of all these frivolous copyright lawsuits there is the general understanding that copyright should be used to protect those who meaningfully contribute to the musical language and i just don't think that article sound system really did that with their song live your life because if you were to argue this case in court as it's been argued in the court of public opinion for the past several days you'd effectively be saying that a mostly white reggae band from south florida owns musical tropes that originated with black folk as they profit off of black culture in that twitter thread wayne marshall also noted that this whole lawsuit quote reminds me of the time some boston electro ogs were suing limp bizkit and i had to tell the lawyers that both of them were clearly referencing craftwork if this goes to court and article sound system ends up winning lord knows outcast will have a strong case against them live my life and levitating sound exactly the same because outcast did it first [Music] if you liked this video maybe consider checking out my patreon there is a patreon only discord where you can go get nerdy with fellow music heads and also consider clicking on this playlist where you can find other videos where i dissect other music lawsuits i'll see you in the next video

Channel: Adam Neely

Views: 1,805,787

Keywords: adam, neely, jazz, fusion, bass, guitar, lesson, theory, music

Id: HnA1QmZvSNs

Length: 9min 32sec (572 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 06 2022

Reddit Comments

[u/gertzerlla]

LPT: document ur creative process

[u/aphonewithaview]

The melody being the same is compelling, but the chord progression being the same? So many songs share the same chord progression- like 50 percent of jazz charts follow the I vi ii V structure. Just saying

[u/TheProtractor]

Every time I watch one of these music theory videos I realize that I know absolutely nothing about music. I didn't understand any of the first parts where he mentions the "keys" used by each song.

[u/BasroilII]

Oh hey look, it's a beat that is used in a ton of funk and 70s songs...where have I heard that before...oh, yeah.

[u/PowerfulArtichoke]

Great vid explaining it really well, I was convinced until now!

[u/Jmeu]

Everyone plagiarized Pachelbel pretty much.

[u/evilClive21]

Adam Neely making redditors look dumb since the inception of the harmonic style of 18th century European musicians.

It's soo tasty seeing these gatekeeping people outing their blind hate for modern/ popular music.

there is no shame in liking music that a lot of people love.

[u/klaxhax]

I got lawsuits, I count 'em.

[u/merijn2]

Ever since I listened to Levitating to wonder what part could be lifted, I thought it was the melody in the verse, but I couldn't place what where I had heard it before. So now I know it is Tarkan's Kiss Kiss.