New York hip hop artist and former pro boxer Mitchell Rose announced that he has filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Shaun “Jay-Z” Carter. Rose’s claim states that on March 12th, 2001 following the William Joppy-Felix Trinidad fight; he handed Jay-Z his demo, which featured tracks in which he used a whispering tone. Rose’s claim continues that shortly after he handed over the tape, Jay-Z stole the style from him and started to use it in his own songs..
“I saw Jay-Z as we were leaving the arena after the fight, gave him my tape, and asked him to listen to it”, explained Rose, who also wrote a book called Mike Tyson Tried To Kill My Daddy. “He took the demo with him and shortly after that he began using the whispering (which he now frequents) in his songs. I had previously trained some of my artists to use that style, but it quickly became obsolete after Jay-Z got a hold of it. He used the whispering to enhance his music and financially benefit from it. Jay-Z disregarded the fact that it was my demo where he got the style from as he went on to use it for his own personal gains, which is wrong”..
Rose has served the lawsuit papers two of Jay-Z’s night clubs and will shortly be sending them to Def Jam Records’ headquarters, where Jay-Z is the CEO.
