Drake and Chris Brown are reportedly facing another copyright infringement lawsuit concerning their 2019 hit “No Guidance.” This new complaint claims that the song infringes on Tykeiya’s 2016 track “I Got It,” as detailed by Music Business Worldwide.
The track “No Guidance” reached No. 5 on the Billboard Hot 100 and topped various charts, including Hot R&B Songs and R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay, while also surpassing one billion streams on Spotify.
This lawsuit follows a previous one that was dismissed in 2022, but it involves different plaintiffs. Tykeiya Dore and Marc Stephens are suing Drake, Brown, and the song’s writers—Nija Charles, Michee Lebrun, and Tyler Bryant—as well as producers Anderson Hernandez, Joshua Huizar, Teddy Walton, and Noah Shebib.
Filed in a New Jersey district court, the lawsuit alleges that the hook of “No Guidance” is a derivative of Tykeiya’s “I Got It,” changing the lyric from “I got it” to “you got it.” The plaintiffs assert that Dore’s uncle, Jesse Spruils, shared “I Got It” with Nija Charles prior to the release of “No Guidance,” and that after the song’s launch, Spruils confronted Charles about the similarities, only to be blocked on social media.
Dore and Stephens are seeking $5 million in damages, and the lawsuit also includes YouTube as a defendant, alleging defamation against Stephens. According to Stephens, he submitted takedown requests for “No Guidance,” but YouTube deemed his claims fraudulent, leading to the deletion of his channel, which was later restored.
The lawsuit states, “It’s impossible to not hear the two songs are substantiall
y similar.”
