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Jay-Z Tickets

Jay Z, Rick Ross and Dr Dre are being sued by a gospel group for sampling one of their tracks without first gaining permission.

SPIN reports that Clara Shepherd Warrick, who wrote the allegedly sampled track 'I'm So Grateful (Keep In Touch)' and Jimmy Lee Weary, who wrote the music, are suing the hip hop heavyweights for copyright infringement, unfair competition and breach of fiduciary duty. They claim the trio sampled the track for Jay's, Ross and Dre's 2012 '3 Kings' single (us neither).

Furthermore, Warrick and Weary claim '3 Kings' has continued to "destroy the commercial value of the song in gospel circles" in addition to the original's "overall integrity and longevity." There are also, allegedly, emails in which the defendants acknowledge their use of 'I'm So Grateful (Keep In Touch)'.

Compare '3 Kings' with 'I'm So Grateful (Keep In Touch)' below:

Unsurprisingly, the gospel group are also unimpressed with the merging of their religious paean with obscene lyrics and imagery, saying the video features "vulgarity, nudity, gun violence, criminal conduct, actions demeaning to women and many other items that are certainly inconsistent" with the original spiritual meaning of their track.

"Defendants hijacked music and lyrics that were written by Plaintiffs to be performed only as spiritually uplifting gospel music and have laced Plaintiffs' gospel work with unsavory language such as "[i]f you real motherf***er scream cheers," "[i]f the b**ch bad I got her in red bottoms," "I only love her when that a** fat," "[c]ome and suck a d**k for a millionaire," the documents read.

The exact sum Crowns of Glory is seeking is unspecified, but SPIN claim the documents they obtained are extensive.