Rapper Nicki Minaj has been sued for allegedly stealing the beat for her song "I Lied" from another artist.
The rapper is being sued alongside mega-producer Mike Will Made It by Julius Johnson, who is claiming that the music playing under the vocals on Nicki's track from "The Pinkprint" sounds like a carbon copy of a song he created years before she dropped "I Lied."
Johnson claims he published his song called "onmysleeve," on YouTube in September 2011, 3 years before "I Lied" came out. He is also claiming that he had the beat on a hard drive when he attended the Art Institute of Atlanta, but the hard drive was taken from a studio session without his consent in 2013.
Johnson is alleging that associates of Nicki and Mike Will Made It were at the Institute around the same time and believes they somehow got their hands on his missing hard drive.
When Nicki released "I Lied" in December 2014 it obviously gained attention and Johnson claims that when he finally heard her song in 2022, he immediately recognized the similarity to his beat, insisting that aside from the lyrics, Nicki's track has basically the same underlying instrumentation and beat as his track.
He's going after Nicki and Mike Will Made It for the profits they earned off his song and wants a judge to order them to stop using it or at least give him credit on "I Lied" for his contribution.
Insiders have however countered the claim as they pointed out that Nicki didn't handle the song's production. They insisted that she wasn't hands-on with the beat, adding that it is "clear Nicki is a lyricist, so the claim in terms of production will obviously have to be addressed by the applicable parties."
Nicki Minaj is yet to comment on the lawsuit publicly.
