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Kanye West is being sued by a pastor for sampling his sermon without permission

A pastor from Texas is serving Kanye West with a lawsuit over a sample used in the Donda track Come to Life.

Kanye is probably starting to realise that doing God’s work can be a pretty tough gig, because he’s now being sued by a pastor who claims he was sampled without permission on Kanye’s track Come to Life.

The song was released on the album Donda, and heavily features audio from a sermon given by Bishop David Paul Moten, the Texas pastor in question.

Kanye Donda
Credit: Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for Universal Music Group

Billboard managed to get their hands on some of the court documents, outlining Motens case: “‘Come to Life’ is approximately five minutes and ten seconds (5:10) in length. Approximately one minute and ten seconds (1:10) of this sound recording is sampled directly from Plaintiff’s sermon.”

Moten even brought the legitimacy of Ye’s other samples into question, stating, “Over the span of several years, defendants have demonstrated an alarming pattern and practice of willfully and egregiously sampling sound recordings of others without consent or permission.”

While the lawsuit is directed at Kanye, Moten is also requesting damages from the rapper’s label G.O.O.D Music, and Donda distributers UMG Recordings and Def Jam Recordings.

Ye is yet to respond to the lawsuit but we can’t wait to hear what his thoughts are.

We’re all for sampling, but if you’re going to make fans pay $200 to listen to your albums, maybe pay for the samples (or at least ask for permission).