Rick Astley files multi-million dollar lawsuit against Yung Gravy for Never Gonna Give You Up row

Rick Astley files multimillion-dollar lawsuit against Yung Gravy alleging violation of imitating his vocals from 1987 hit Never Gonna Give You Up

Rick Astley has filed a lawsuit against Yung Gravy, saying the rap artist was unauthorized to use an imitation of his vocals from 1987’s Never Gonna Give You Up for the 2022 single Betty (Get Money).

The English singer-songwriter, 56, filed legal documents The Angels which were reviewed by TMZsaying that Yung Gravy and his team only licensed the instrumentals of the pop classic.

Astley’s legal team told the court that the Rochester, Minnesota-born musician, 26, and his production team, which included Dillon Francis, and impersonator Nick “Popnick” Seeley, were not authorized to reproduce the vocals of his hit song, leading to the online ‘Rick-Rolling’ phenomenon.

The latest: Rick Astley, 56, has filed a lawsuit against 26-year-old Yung Gravy, saying the rap artist unauthorizedly imitated his vocals from 1987's Never Gonna Give You Up for his single Betty (Get Money)

Yung Gravy was photographed in LA earlier this month

The latest: Rick Astley, 56, has filed a lawsuit against 26-year-old Yung Gravy, saying the rap artist unauthorizedly imitated his vocals from 1987’s Never Gonna Give You Up for his single Betty (Get Money)

The group “sucked together to include a deliberate and almost indistinguishable imitation of Mr. Astley’s voice throughout the song,” Astley’s legal team told the court.

Astley said Yung Gravy may have cost him lucrative future collaboration opportunities by using Never Gonna Give You Up as the basis for his 2022 song.

In his lawsuit, Astley cited an interview Yung Gravy, whose real name is Matthew Hauri, gave Billboard in August, explaining the process of how and why he “basically remade” Astley’s vocals for Betty (Get Money).

“I always thought that monster would be too crazy to do anything with. I just never thought it was liquidable,” Yung Money said. “Someone who co-owned the rights to the sample said to me, ‘We fuck with you, you should give it a try.’

Astley's legal team told the court that the rapper and his team were not authorized to reproduce the vocals from his hit song, leading to the online 'Rick-Rolling' phenomenon

Astley’s legal team told the court that the rapper and his team were not authorized to reproduce the vocals from his hit song, leading to the online ‘Rick-Rolling’ phenomenon

Astley told the court that Yung Gravy may have cost him lucrative future collaboration opportunities by using Never Gonna Give You Up as the basis for his 2022 song.

Astley told the court that Yung Gravy may have cost him lucrative future collaboration opportunities by using Never Gonna Give You Up as the basis for his 2022 song.

He continued, “My boy Nick, who does a lot of sample iterations and recreates original samples, we basically recreated the whole song.” Had a different singer and instruments, but it was all very close because it becomes easier legally.’

Never Gonna Give You Up was first released by Astley in December 1987 and reached #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in March 1988.

Betty (Get Money) has been a hit single and achieved gold status in the US, Australia and Canada.