Bruno Mars, Mark Ronson Sued for 'Uptown Funk' Once Again
It has been some time since "Uptown Funk" came out, but the hit single is still being targeted by lawsuits from other, earlier acts. This time, it's Sequence who is claiming that Bruno Mars' and Mark Ronson's hit single sounds too close to their 1979 piece "Funk You Up".
The Sequence, a female rap trio that released the single "Funk You Up" in 1979, submitted court documents claiming that "Uptown Funk" has "significant and substantially similar compositional elements" to their single.
"Funk You Up" was a hit in its own right, claiming the distinction of being the third rap single to climb the Billboard's Top 50, according to TMZ. The rap trio is asking for a jury trial and an undisclosed sum of money from Bruno Mars and Mark Ronson.
Bruno Mars has yet to respond to this lawsuit.
Earlier this year, the group shared with Rolling Stone their take on "Uptown Funk," and the similarities with their signature single. "Bruno Mars took the lyrics, the cadence and the melodies," Angie Stone said earlier on May 2017.
"I'm like, OK, now y'all done did too much. We're broke over here, OK? We need some money. We need some of that, because we created that!" she added. Gwendolyn "Blondy" Chisolm also chimed in, saying: "We damn near 60 years old. It's nothing funny about this. We still have to work."
"For everybody that has used our music, we should have been millionaires a long time ago," says Cheryl "The Pearl" Cook.
They're not just the one looking to get a slice of the "Uptown Funk" payday, though. The Gap Band was way ahead of them in 2015, citing similarities with another 1979 hit "Oops Upside Your Head."
Again, in October 2016, Mars and Ronson were sued for allegedly infringing on "Young Girls," a 1983 single by Collage.
