Dua “DULAGATE” Lipa

By Nick Peta

Dua Lipa is facing a lawsuit in Los Angeles federal court from reggae band Artikal Sound System. The band claims that Lipa’s iconic 2020 hit, “Levitating,” is a rip-off of their 2017 song “Live Your Life.” 

Lipa’s label, Warner Records, is the defendant in the lawsuit, with Artikal Sound System seeking royalties from the song, which was the No. 1 hit on Billboard’s 2021 year-end Hot 100 Songs chart. Neither Lipa nor her team have commented on the case. 

This is not the first time “Levitating” has come under fire. Previously it was due to the feature on Lipa’s track from the homophobic, Kanye’s porch featured, DaBaby. This feature was swiftly removed from streaming platforms, but still exists on Lipa’s YouTube channel. Despite being a hit as COVID rocked the world, “Levitating” can’t seem to catch a break, as seen in this lawsuit with “Live Your Life.” 

The two tracks are apparently so alike that the Artikal Sound Systems team claimed it is “highly unlikely that Levitating was created independently.”

Decide for yourself here:

There has definitely been an increase in copyright issues similar to this one, stemming from the Marvin Gaye Estate vs. Robin Thicke & Pharrell Williams case in 2015 after a judge ordered Thicke and Pharrell Williams to pay almost $5 million to Marvin Gaye’s estate in the case’s final ruling surrounding the similarities of their song “Blurred Lines” against Gaye’s song “Got to Give It Up.”