The Weeknd & Daft Punk sued by African artist for $5m

Toronto based The Weeknd and enigmatic French production duo Daft Punk are being sued for $5 million by a Somalian poet and singer-songwriter.

Known as Yasminah, she says that their collaboration Starboy, the lead single off the Abel Tesfaye album, was modelled heavily on her 2009 song Hooyo, which came seven years earlier.

Abel Tesfaye is The Weeknd’s birth name.

Starboy clicked over 1 billion YouTube views and reached #1 in the US, New Zealand, Canada, France, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Greece, Israel, Luxembourg, Norway, Portugal, Slovakia and Sweden.

In Australia, where it was certified 4 x platinum, it peaked at #2 on the ARIA Top 100 but topped the ARIA Urban chart.

Yasminah’s court filings say the two tracks share the same hook, key, tempo and clap effects on beats two and four.

“The extreme similarities between the songs can be indisputably identified by listeners who have heard both songs,” she claims, claiming that a number of blogs also noted the similarities.

She further states that The Weeknd would know of her songs because of his East African background.

The two producers of Hooyah previously threatened lawsuits but settled for undisclosed figures.

But Yasminah says she never saw any of that money herself, and hence filing her own court action.

Starboy was Abel’s third studio album.

The Weeknd contacted Daft Punk through mutual friends in the Canadian music scene. While recording the track I Feel It Coming, he heard some music that Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo was playing on a personal device.

Liking the beat, The Weeknd quickly wrote some music around it and turned it into Starboy.

The Weeknd and Marvel are working on a comic inspired by the Starboy project.

Last year he told Pigeons & Planes, “Starboy is the next chapter in this chronicle, this saga.

“I guess this is the fourth chapter.

“He’s a character that we created. It’s so funny, we want to create a comic out of him, as well. He’s a cool, dope character that makes appearances a lot on the album. He’s definitely made his appearance in different records in the past, as well.

“He’s a more braggadocious character that we all have inside of us.”