LOS ANGELES (CelebrityAccess) – In addition to Lizzo and Dua Lipa, another lawsuit against a major artist has been filed, this time alleging unpaid royalties and missing credits on Jason Derulo and Jawsh 685’s hit, “Savage Love.”
The lawsuit, obtained by MBW, was filed on Monday (July 31) by Matthew Spatola, who is described in the lawsuit as “a Grammy-nominated professional producer, songwriter, and musician for various high-profile music artists such as Drake and DJ Khaled”.
Before hooking up with Derulo “Savage Love”, Spatola had worked with many different artists such as Juice WRLD, Lil Uzi Vert, and Nipsey Hussle. He has also performed on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel Live, and Saturday Night Live.
Sony Music Entertainment and Columbia Records are also named as defendants in the lawsuit, which you can read in full, here.
Radar Online reports the suit claims that the defendants refuse “to accord Matthew Spatola the credit and royalties he is due as a co-author” of “Savage Love.”
Via the filing, Spatola claims that on April 23, 2020, he and Derulo “collaborated to create the instrumental composition and recording of what would later become “Savage Love” in Derulo’s Los Angeles home studio”.
According to the complaint, Derulo “unilaterally released ‘Savage Love,’ without providing any credit whatsoever to Spatola for the work they jointly created together. This lawsuit is filed to right that wrong, and to ensure that Spatola is properly credited as a co-writer of ‘Savage Love’ and compensated for his contributions thereto.”
It adds: “Although Spatola had produced at Derulo’s home studio before ‘Savage Love,’ those sessions involved a larger group of contributors and were entirely unrelated to ‘Savage Love.’ To Spatola’s knowledge, none of the music created at those earlier sessions was ever released by Derulo.
“‘Savage Love’ was different – the writing and conceptualizing of the instrumental composition and the creation of the actual recording occurred when Spatola and Derulo were the only contributors present in Derulo’s studio collaborating together to create ‘Savage Love.’”
The complaint states that “Savage Love started by sampling a song that gained widespread fame on TikTok called Laxed (Siren – Beat)” .
That sample was created by a teenager from New Zealand named Jawsh 685 (real name Joshua Stylah). Derulo made headlines in May 2020 for not crediting Jawsh 685 as the source of the sample when he originally posted a clip of “Savage Love” to TikTok.
According to the new complaint, “A month later, after what were likely significant negotiations between Sony, Jawsh, and Derulo, permission was obtained to release “Savage Love”, contemporaneously with Jawsh being signed to Derulo’s label Columbia Records, but without involving Spatola in any way.”
Spatola also claims that “since the commercial release of Savage Love”, he has “requested that Derulo provide him with credit for his work from Derulo directly”.
The complaint adds: “Although Derulo originally agreed, after multiple follow-up messages, Derulo failed to follow through and rightfully credit Spatola as a co-writer.”
MBW.com reports that Spatola is asking the court to declare that he “is a joint author and has ownership of the sound recording of “Savage Love” an that he “is a joint author in the composition of Savage Love” as well as being “entitled to co-writer and co-producer credit on the copyright of the sound recording and composition of Savage Love, including on remixed versions” of the track.
Spatola is seeking unspecified damages from Derulo and Sony Music.
