Music Mondays: Twin Artists Win Lawsuit Against Jeezy for Song Theft

You may not know their names, but if you listen to hip-hop and rap, you may have heard their music.

In 2007, twins Edaz and Edward Redden said they recorded a song called “I Ball, I Stunt.”

“It started off as something that we thought wouldn’t even make it that big,” Edaz said.

Holding on to hope, the pair said they let some mutual friends listen to it. Next thing they knew, their song was being played on the radio.

But it wasn’t their voices.

“I was like, ‘I know that’s not our song,’” Edward said. “After I heard it word for word, I said, ‘This dude got our song.’”

The Reddens accused Grammy-nominated recording artist Jay Jenkins, known as Jeezy, of rerecording the same song and putting it on his 2011 mixtape “The Real is Back.”

“He took it word for word,” Edaz said. “The whole title, he put a comma where we put a comma at. He took the whole title of the song, he took the hook, everything.”

The duo decided it was time to take legal action.

“Immediately, the time we heard our song on the radio,” Edward said. “We didn’t give nobody permission to nothing, so we immediately called up the lawyer.”

After a three-year battle, a judge entered a default ruling ordering Jenkins to pay the twins more than $100,000.

The brothers hope their experience serves as a lesson to up and coming recording artists about the importance of protecting their music.

“Just get your stuff copyrighted,” Edward said. “So that if anybody do take your stuff and you didn’t give them permission, you can get your money.”

– Excerpt from an article written by Derion Henderson for Fox 2 News. Find the full article here.