PAY UP, YEEZ
’60s singer sues Kanye for sampling his song
A ONE-TIME child soul singer has slammed Kanye West with a lawsuit charging the rapper coopted his voice without asking g and used it on his album “Yeezus.”
Ricky Spicer, 56, of Ohio, said d he was stunned when he heard d himself on the radio backing up West on the hit single “Bound 2,” which debuted at No. 1 on the e Billboard charts in June.
Spicer recorded the lyrics in n 1969 when he was the 12-yearold lead singer of the Ponderosa a Twins Plus One.
It was released two years later r as “Bound (to Love).”
“Mr. Spicer’s voice is sampled exactly as he recorded it and his voice . . . is heard several times,” reads the suit filed Monday in Manhattan Supreme Court.
Spicer is demanding West compensate him or cease and desist from using his voice.
Besides West, the suit names recording labels Roc-A-Fella Reco Records, Island Def-Jam Music, R Rhino Entertainment and U Universal Music Group as de- fendants.
Spicer was living in the Ohio Boys Town orphanage when he was discovered at a talent show. Music publisher Chuck Brown got him to join the Ponderosa Twins — then made up of two sets of twins. “He was their Michael Jackson,” said Spicer’s attorney, V Vincent Imbesi.
Universal Music Group, th the parent company of RocA A-Fella Records and Island D Def-Jam, did not respond to a request for comment.