Three 6 Mafia Sue $uicideboy$ For Sampling 35 Songs Without Permission
The music of New Orleans rap duo $uicideboy$ is explicitly inspired by the early Three 6 Mafia sound. It seemed the admiration was mutual, as Juicy J, one of the architects of that sound, recruited them to produce his mixtapes Highly Intoxicated and Shutdafukup. But now, AllHipHop reports that Three 6 Mafia’s Juicy J and DJ Paul are suing $uicideboy$ for allegedly sampling dozens of their songs without permission.
In a lawsuit filed in June, Juicy and Paul accuse Ruby Da Cherry and Scrim of $uicideboy$ of “illegally sampling and stealing” from 35 different Three 6 Mafia Tracks, including “Mask And Da Glock,” “Mafia Niggaz (Yeah Hoe),” and “Smoked Out, Loced Out,” in order to “trade off and profit from Three 6 Mafia’s original sound and hard-earned success in the hip-hop industry.” They’re seeking $1.2 million in “compensatory and actual damages, including Defendants’ profits from infringement,” plus over $5 mil in statutory damages.
$uicideboy$ have denied the allegations, claiming that they never received payment for their production work on Juicy J’s mixtapes and that Juicy instead gave them verbal permission to sample the tracks as compensation. They go on to argue that Paul and Juicy don’t even own the rights to the songs in question because they failed to clear samples in the original tracks, rendering their copyrights invalid. They also say that Paul stole six of their songs for $uicide 6ix, a mixtape from his nephews’ group Seed Of 6, and that Juicy’s bodyguard ripped them off for $30,000.