Big Freedia, Beyonce sued by New Orleans bounce group for copyright infringement
28th May 2024 · 0 Comments
By Michelle Liu
Contributing Writer
(Veritenews.org) — A one-time quartet of New Orleans-area bounce musicians are suing Big Freedia and Beyonce for alleged copyright infringement and unfair trade practices over the use of the phrase “release a wiggle.”
The federal copyright suit, filed Wednesday (May 22) in the Eastern District of Louisiana in New Orleans, accuses Big Freedia of poaching the phrase in her 2014 single “Explode.” The plaintiffs claim Freedia took it from a 2002 song called “Release A Wiggle” produced by the New Orleans-area quartet, known as Da Showstoppaz.
Beyonce, who sampled “Explode” in “Break My Soul,” a single from her 2022 album “Renaissance,” is also named as a defendant in the suit. Other writers and producers credited on “Break My Soul,” including the rapper and producer Jay-Z – Beyonce’s husband – are named as defendants, along with assorted companies affiliated with the artists and the making of the two songs.
Tessa Avie, Keva Bourgeois, Henri Braggs and Brian Clark – the plaintiffs – were known as Da Showstoppaz, a short-lived group of bounce musicians who came together to record “Release A Wiggle” in an apartment studio in New Orleans East in 2002. The single was featured on a mixtape sold by BlackHouse Entertainment at bounce parties in the city, and “Release A Wiggle” became a local hit at bounce clubs, according to the complaint.
The plaintiffs, who are represented by New Orleans-area attorneys Shermin Khan and Abid M. Hussain, argue that Big Freedia and “Explode” producer Adam Pigott, known as BlaqnMilD, would have been aware of the original song because Big Freedia was also affiliated with BlackHouse Entertainment.
“Given Big Freedia’s roots in New Orleans and ties to its bounce scene, and Big Freedia’s association with BlackHouse, any reasonable person could infer that Big Freedia had access to Da Showstoppaz’ ‘Release A Wiggle,’” the complaint reads.
In “Explode,” Big Freedia uses the phrase “release yo’ wiggle” and other “substantively similar phrases” repeatedly, infringing on “Release A Wiggle” a dozen times, according to the suit.
The plaintiffs argue that “release yo wiggle,” as Big Freedia raps it, and the phrasing used by Da Showstoppaz are interchangeable given how they’re said with a New Orleans accent. The complaint claims that the phrases “release a wiggle” and “release ya wiggle” had never been recorded or published in any other song prior to Da Showstoppaz’s “Release A Wiggle.”
Representatives for Beyonce, Jay-Z, Big Freedia and BlaqNmilD did not respond to requests for comment on the suit.
“Artists should be protected under bounce music,” said Braggs, a member of Da Showstoppaz, in an interview with Verite News. “Those who sign with record labels are protected … through their record label. But there’s a lot of independent artists who are not business-savvy enough to understand the copyright part of their works. And I hope this sets a standard for people in bounce, independent or not.”
“Release A Wiggle” was uploaded to Youtube in March 2014 by Bourgeois, one of Da Showstoppaz, with a description that reads:
“The 1st version of release a wiggle that we recorded for the Blackhouse compilation “fire on the bayou” gees dat was ages ago..maybe 10 years..then they did us the dirt…oh well the music business is wicked especially for a gay, lesbian or transgendered person who don’t know the rite ppl….das life.”
The group applied for and received copyright registrations for sound recording on “Release A Wiggle” in 2022, and the lyrics, melody and music arrangements in 2023, according to the complaint.
Plaintiffs are seeking to be credited on both “Explode” and “Break My Soul,” along with royalties for future uses of both songs and damages tied to profits that Big Freedia and Beyonce have made from the songs.
Big Freedia herself has sued over copyright issues. In 2018, the artist filed suit against the choreographer Wilberto Dejarnetti, who was featured on Freedia’s reality show “Big Freedia Bounces Back” on the Fuse cable channel.
Dejarnetti had sought royalties over dance routines that were “largely based on and derivative of traditional ‘bounce’ dance movements and other routines,” Freedia’s lawyers wrote. Dejarnetti had also claimed to have co-authored some of Freedia’s songs, but the artist maintained Dejarnetti didn’t have a “copyrightable” role, as The Times-Picayune reported. The suit was settled in 2021.
‘We were shocked’
Braggs said she wasn’t aware of Big Freedia’s “Explode” until she heard the sample in Beyonce’s “Break My Soul” shortly after the latter was released in 2022.
“Me and my other three band members, we heard it and we reached out to each other,” Braggs said. “We were shocked that our lyrics were contained within ‘Break My Soul.’”
Braggs and the other members of Da Showstoppaz were young adults in the city’s bounce scene in the early 2000s, frequenting clubs like Fusions and KeyWest, when they befriended each other through their love of the genre.
“Bounce music was the main string that joined all the different cities from St. Rose all the way to New Orleans,” Braggs said. “It was the backbone of what culture was.”
Bourgeois, another member of the group, soon received an offer from a family friend who later launched BlackHouse Entertainment to do a song on a mixtape. Bourgeois asked to include the rest of Da Showstoppaz on the mixtape, then, while working a day job at Taco Bell, came up with “Release A Wiggle” as the name of a song and lyric for its hook. The group then spent two days composing “Release A Wiggle,” sitting around Bourgeois’ kitchen table to fill notebooks with lyrics before recording an early version with a karaoke machine and cassette player, according to the complaint.
The group never inked a contract or procured paperwork from BlackHouse Entertainment, and the single made its way onto the 2002 mixtape “Fire on Da Bayou Vol. 1,” which “was disseminated from the trunks of cars by block party DJs and at nightclubs, or handed out to well-known disc-jockeys who played the music at bounce music venues during that time period,” the complaint reads.
The group proceeded to perform “Release A Wiggle” at local parties, Braggs said: “We felt a sense of being part of the culture, like all of the people we have watched perform and become local artists – we were now a part of that.”
Da Showstoppaz broke up after Black House Entertainment disaffiliated from the group in 2004 and Hurricane Katrina destroyed much of the materials related to “Release A Wiggle” the following year. The four members, who were also displaced by the storm, felt “discarded by the music industry and stopped participating in the bounce music scene,” according to the suit.
Since then, Braggs hasn’t put out any new music and is no longer part of the bounce scene, she said. Now working as a spiritual consultant, Braggs said she and the other three members still remain close friends.
“That was our baby,” Braggs said of “Release A Wiggle.” “That was our first song that we all put together as a group. That was the first song we recorded as a group, the only song that we performed as a group. That was the beginning of everything.”
This article originally published in the May 27, 2024 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
