(REUTERS) – A Texas minister is suing Kanye West, saying the rapper, producer and
entrepreneur used a recording of one of his sermons without permission in the song “Come to
Life.”

Dallas County, Texas, pastor David Paul Moten sued West, his label Universal Music Group
(UMG.AS), and its subsidiaries Def Jam Recordings and the West-founded G.O.O.D. Music on
Tuesday in Dallas federal court. The copyright infringement lawsuit says at least two sections of
“Come to Life” feature excerpts from Moten’s sermon.

UMG and an attorney for Moten did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the
lawsuit. West, who legally changed his name to Ye last year, could not immediately be reached
for comment.

Moten claims samples from his sermon comprise over 20% of “Come to Life,” which appeared
on West’s hit album “Donda” last year. Named for West’s late mother, “Donda” went to the top
of the Billboard charts and was nominated for a Grammy award for album of the year.

Moten said in the lawsuit that West has shown an “alarming pattern” of “wilfully and egregiously
sampling sound recordings of others without consent.”

West has previously settled lawsuits over samples of a Hungarian singer on the 2013 song “New
Slaves,” a child’s prayer on the 2016 song “Ultralight Beam,” and a theatre work about Jamaican
activist, Marcus Garvey on “Freeee (Ghost Town Pt. 2),” a 2018 collaboration with rapper, Kid
Cudi.