According to a story published on Yahoo News over the weekend, reggae-pop band UB40 is suing Paris Hilton for half a million U.S. dollars, for allegedly ripping off their song Kingston Town in her 2006 hit single Stars Are Blind.
This suit follows the heels of Paris Hiltons string of law run-ins and courthouse appearances. The heiress to a share of the Hilton hotel fortune as well as real estate fortune of her father was arrested in 2006 for driving under the influence and subsequently sentenced to 36 months probation and had her license suspended. Following subsequent arrests for driving with a suspended license and speeding, Hilton was charged with violating her probation and sentenced to 45 days in jail recently.
This is the second such suit involving a reggae singer and an American celebrity in the last year. The first was a suit which alleges that L'il Kim ripped off a song, Mi and Mi God by Tanya Stephens on her 2005 album, 'The Naked Truth'.
In that suit, it is alleged that L'il Kim flew Stephens to New York, asking her to sing on one of her albums and belting out by heart the very song she pilfered to show what a big fan she was of Stephens, according to the suit.
Stephens and her representatives from the Royalty Network were shocked when they first listened to Lil' Kim's late-2005 album, "The Naked Truth."
The writer of the New York Times article, Janon Fisher wrote that "the lyrics of Kim's track "Durty" match almost word for word with Stephens' song Mi and Mi God recorded in Jamaica and released in 1997, they say. Kim reached out to Stephens in 1999 and flew her up to have her sing on one of her albums. She gushed over Stephens when they met in the New York recording studio, telling her that she was a "big fan" and that she owned several of the reggae artist's albums, the suit says. Kim even sang her favorite Stephens song, which she knew by heart. It was Mi and Mi God, according to the lawsuit. Stephens then sang with Kim, but the vocals never made the album."