David Adeleke, better known as Davido, is a Nigerian singer who has been given 21 days to appear before the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York in Manhattan to respond to charges of intellectual property theft.
Abel Great Umaru, David Ovhioghena Umaru, Kelvin Ayodele Campbell, and Martins Chukwuka Emmanuel are the four Nigerian artists who filed the lawsuit, according to court documents that Peoples Gazette was able to obtain.
Davido was charged with stealing their 2022 song “Work.” Davido allegedly used their song to create his own 2024 single, “Strawberry on Ice,” according to the plaintiffs.
Emmerson Amidu Bockarie, better known by his stage name Emmerson, who appeared on Davido’s song, Carlos Jenkins, Matthew Quinney, Marques Miles II, and Wynn Records, the label that published and distributed “Strawberry on Ice,” are also named in the lawsuit along with Davido.
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In January 2022, the plaintiffs, acting in good faith, shared a demo of “Work” with Davido as part of a possible collaboration, according to the court documents. At the time, the trio was trying to make a splash in the music industry. Instead, the plaintiffs claim that Davido brought the song to Emmerson, who sampled the individual recorded vocal and instrumental parts of “Work” without authorization to produce “Strawberry on Ice.”
After contacting Davido to settle the dispute, the plaintiffs were successful in reaching an agreement on March 14, 2025, after several months of negotiations. Davido was required to pay $45,000 as part of the settlement, and the plaintiffs would also receive 20% of the earnings from the song’s sound recording and 40% of the royalties from the song’s underlying composition. Despite his pledge to make payment prior to the prearranged date of March 24, Davido did not fulfill his end of the bargain.
On April 4, the plaintiffs responded by bringing a lawsuit in New York against Davido and his co-defendants. The plaintiffs want the court to rule that Davido and his co-defendants violated “Work’s” intellectual property rights. Along with $150,000 in damages, they want to give the plaintiffs 20% of the sound recording copyright and 40% of the compositional copyright for “Strawberry on Ice.”
They further want the court to stop the defendants from violating the plaintiffs’ copyrights in the future or from taking any other measures that would violate their future works.
