Lizzo Accused of Plagiarizing Her Big Hit 'Truth Hurts'
By James Sainte-Claire October 16, 2019
One of these days I'm going to get accused of plagiarizing my own tweets because I tweet a lot of the jokes I make in these articles while I'm writing, so they're out there way before the articles get published.
What happened to Lizzo was a little different because the line "I just took a DNA test, turns out I'm 100% that bitch" came from a tweet from someone else, but that's small potatoes compared to the accusation that the entire song was written with two artists who didn't get credit or money for it, which is the allegation Justin Raisen made on Instagram.
On April 11th, 2017, we wrote a song called "Healthy" w/ Lizzo, Jesse St John, and Yves Rothman at our studio. "I just took a DNA test turns out I'm 100% that bitch" was taken from "Healthy" and used in "Truth Hurts". We were never contacted about being credited for the use of the parts of "Healthy" (melody, lyrics, and chords) that appear in "Truth Hurts". After reaching out to Ricky Reed and Lizzo's team about fixing it, we put the song in dispute in 2017 when it came out. We've tried to sort this out quietly for the last two years, only asking for 5% each but were shutdown every time.
Coming forward publicly to family, friends, artists, and colleagues seems to be the only way at this point in relieving some of our emotional distress caused by this. The last thing we want to do is throw any negativity toward Lizzo's momentum and movement as a cultural figure. If we believe in what she's preaching, believing in ourselves & our own voices is something we thought she'd understand.
Shout out to the singer Mina Lioness ( @minalioness ) for tweeting "I just did a DNA test turns out I'm 100% that bitch". A meme of that came up in our writing session & inspired the lyric and melody we wrote together. If Ricky and Lizzo's team decide to settle this dispute with us, we would like to share some of the proceeds with Mina for her influence on Healthy.
The clip below shows a video & photos from the day we wrote "Healthy" along with the comparisons between the two works.
All the Love,
Justin & Jeremiah Raisen
If we're being 100% honest here, we don't even know if Lizzo is going to be the next Cardi B or just the next Los Del Rio. Remember them? Of course you don't. But they never attacked an UberEats driver they had given the wrong address to.
#lizzo
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