Music

Christian rappers suing Katy Perry for turning their song into witchcraft

by Mark Teo

July 3, 2014

While Katy Perry grew up as an evangelical Christian, in an interview late last year, she denounced her faith—claiming that she doesn’t believe in a “a heaven or a hell or an old man sitting on a throne.” But just as she turned her back on her childhood religion, Christians are turning their backs on the “Roar” singer: Namely, God-fearing rappers Flame and Lecrae are suing Perry for copyright infringement. Their complaint? That “Dark Horse” pilfered and abused passages from the Missouri rappers’ 2008 song, “Joyful Noise.”

Of course, Perry and her label wouldn’t be the first high-profile artists sued for stealing another’s work. What makes Flame and Lecrae—who won a Grammy under the gospel category in 2013—noteworthy, then? Dig into their lawsuit, which also sues Capitol Records and Juicy J, for their rationale: The two Southern rappers claim that “Dark Horse” promotes witchcraft.

“[T]he devoutly religious message of ‘Joyful Noise’ has been irreparably tarnished by its association with the witchcraft, paganism, black magic, and Illuminati imagery evoked by the same music in ‘Dark Horse,'” their lawsuit states. “Indeed, the music video of ‘Dark Horse’ generated widespread accusations of blasphemy and an online petition signed by more than 60,000 demanding removal of an offensive religious image from the video.”

The offensive religious image in question? A man wearing an Islamic Allah pendant. The man is engulfed in flames, which many viewed as anti-religious.

Either way, Flame and Lecrae want Perry to stop using any recreation of “Joyful Noise,” which appears on an album called Our World: Redeemed. So, do you spot similarities between the songs? Here’s “Dark Horse.”