Texas Pastor and Bishop David Paul Moten filed a lawsuit against Kanye West and his recording label Universal Music Group, including Def Jam Recordings and West’s own G.O.O.D. Music group, for using his sermon without permission in a specific song.

Moten filed his suit in a Dallas federal court, claiming copyright infringement, and alleging there is a minimum of two different parts of the song ‘Come to Life’ that is on West’s hit new album, Donda, directly taken from his sermon.

“Defendants willfully and without the permission or consent of Plaintiff extensively sampled portions of the Sermon,” Moten said in his suit. “Over the span of several years, defendants have demonstrated an alarming pattern and practice of willfully and egregiously sampling sound recordings of others without consent or permission.”

Kanye West, aka Ye, is considered one of the greatest and most influential hip-hop musicians in history and is known for his strong, religious lyrics.

Court documents show Moten alleges numerous samples from his sermon make up more than twenty percent of the song ‘Come to Life’ on the album, ‘Donda,’ which is named after the singer’s deceased mother.

‘Donda’ is a massive hit and had been nominated for a Grammy in the best rap album category for album of the year. West, who was scheduled to perform at the Grammys on April 3, did not appear due to what his spokesperson said was "concerning online behavior."

West released ‘Donda’ on Aug. 29, 2021, and it quickly became the number 1 top single-week of the year, as it also topped the Billboard 200 albums chart, with over 309,000 equivalent album units sold. ‘Donda’ spent 35 weeks on the Billboard chart.

Legal documents show the plaintiff accusing West of showing an “alarming pattern (of) willfully and egregiously sampling sound recordings of others without consent.”

In his five-minute song ‘Come to Life,’ the alleged illegal sample is heard at the very beginning of the song, as someone says “My soul cries out, ‘Hallelujah’. And I thank God for saving me, I thank God.”

Another alleged illegal sampling, occurring later on in the song, is

“Hallelujah (Thank You, Jesus) Hallelujah (Yes) Hallelujah…”.

The plaintiff states in court documents that within the five-minute, ten-second song ‘Come to Life,’ "[a]pproximately one minute and ten seconds (1:10) of this sound recording is sampled directly from Plaintiff’s sermon.”

“Copyright infringement occurs when a copyrighted work is reproduced, distributed, performed, publicly displayed, or made into a derivative work without the permission of the copyright owner,” states the US Copyright office.

To prove copyright infringement, the plaintiff must prove he has a valid copyright for his sermon and that his original materials were used without his permission. Moten has a recording of the alleged illegally used sampling of this sermon, prior to the date West used it in his song.

This is not the first time West has faced similar lawsuits. In 2013, the singer was sued for his usage allegedly without permission of a Hungarian singer in the song “New Slaves.” In 2016 he was charged with sampling the song 'Ultralight Beam’ and in 2018 he was sued for using work taken without permission in 'Freeee (Ghost town PT. 2).' These cases were all settled.