British pop star Dua Lipa has once again landed herself in hot waters after a federal judge in Manhattan said the singer must face a lawsuit accusing her of copying her 2021 megahit ‘Levitating’ from a 1979 disco song.
U.S. District Judge Katherine Polk Failla said songwriters L. Russell Brown and Sandy Linzer could try to prove substantial similarity between ‘Levitating’ and their song ‘Wiggle and Giggle All Night’.
Lawyers for Lipa and her record label Warner Records did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The lawsuit, filed in March 2022, claimed that ‘Levitating’ shared compositional elements with ‘Wiggle’, most significantly by duplicating its opening melody. Defense lawyers argued that it was implausible to believe that the 27 year old singer heard ‘Wiggle’ before writing ‘Levitating’.
Failla agreed however, he said that the plaintiffs alleged just enough facts to argue that the songs were so ‘strikingly similar’, including by sharing a repetitive rhythm and signature melody, that Lipa must have copied theirs.
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Lipa has already faced two other copyright lawsuits over ‘Levitating’. A court complaint from reggae group Artikal Sound System was dismissed in June. A separate lawsuit by songwriters Sandy Linzer and L. Russell Brown is ongoing.
‘Levitating’, from Lipa’s album ‘Future Nostalgia’, spent 77 weeks on Billboard’s Hot 100 U.S. singles chart, and was the No. 1 song on Billboard’s 2021 year-end chart.
