Pitchfork reports today that both Gwen Stefani and Pharrell Williams are facing a lawsuit, for alleged copyright infringement. The lawsuit comes from musician Richard Morrill, who claims that the pair’s 2014 collaboration “Spark the Fire” bears an illegal amount of lyrical and musical similarities to the chorus of Morrill’s 1996 track “Who’s Got My Lightah”.
Morrill was a former vocalist in the band L.A.P.D, which would go on to become Korn, and claims that he gifted a copy of the song to Stefani in the late 1990’s, and is taking the lawsuit against both Interscope records, and the singer’s own Harajuku Lovers company. Pitchfork reports that Morrill is seeking damages, “all gains and profits that they have enjoyed” at his own expense, as well as legal fees, and public acknowledgement of the track’s copyright infringement. You can compare the two tracks, and their questionable choruses, here.
This is not the first time that Pharrell has been involved in a musical lawsuit, having famously been ordered to pay the estate of Marvin Gaye $7.4 million in March 2015, having been adjudged to having illegally stolen the music of the late soul icon, when writing the track “Blurred Lines” with Robin Thicke and T.I.