Remember when Katy Hudson was a Christian singer no one knew about? Ah, the good old day. Then she shed the good-girl image, kissed a girl, became Katy Perry, and now you can’t get away from her.

According to a new lawsuit, some of that Christian past may be catching up with her.

Christian hip-hop artists Flame (Marcus Gray), Lacrae (Lecrae Moore), Emanuel Lambert, and Chike Ojukwu wrote a song called “Joyful Noise” about five years ago. Listen to the first few seconds of it:

The men are claiming that Perry — along with singer Juicy J (Jordan Houston) and a team of songwriters/producers — stole the eight-note riff from their song for her hit “Dark Horse” (listen beginning around the 0:19 mark):

This is the same music video, by the way, that was under fire earlier this year because thousands of Muslims were offended by what they claimed was blasphemy in the video. In response, Perry’s team removed from the video a pendant with the word “Allah” written on it.

The most notable part of the Christians’ lawsuit explains the plaintiffs’ injuries:

… Defendants unlawful actions have caused irreparable harm to Plaintiffs’ reputation and the reputation of the Joyful Noise song within the Christian gospel music world by, among other things, creating a false association between the music of Joyful Noise and the anti-Christian witchcraft, paganism, black magic, and Illuminati imagery evoked by Defendants’ Song, especially in the music video version.

Riiiiiight. Because when I hear Katy Perry, I think of the Illuminati and witchcraft and Harry Potter and goth people and magical potions. And all of that automatically makes me think of Jesus and the Dove Awards.

Look, there may be copyright infringement going on, but I don’t know how any rationale person — much less a jury, which is what Flame’s side wants — could think this somehow tarnishes Flame’s reputation in any way. Certainly not by associating him with Voldemort.

Will jury members even be swayed by the explanation of the infringement given by Flame’s DJ, Cho’zyn Boy?

“What listeners are hearing is Katy Perry’s ‘Dark Horse’ at 66 beats per minute and they’re hearing Flame’s “Joyful Noise” at 76 beats per minute,” he said. “When they’re separated, they seem a bit different, but when you bring them to the same tempo and you just change her pitch down one octave, they’re identical… When things are that similar, it’s hard to dispute.”

They don’t sound exactly alike, but when you speed it up and bring the pitch down, they kinda do!

Yes, that’s very convincing…

There’s far more similarity between Perry’s “Roar” and Sara Bareilles‘ “Brave” (which came out first) — and Bareilles laughed off the notion of any lawsuit when her fans complained.

On a side note, Flame’s attorney is the same guy who sued the folks behind The Hangover Part II because his client designed Mike Tyson‘s face tattoo, a design which appeared on Ed Helms‘ face in the movie. That suit later settled for an undisclosed amount.

(Image via s_bukley / Shutterstock.com. Thanks to David for the link)



