Mary J. Blige & Keri Hilson Sued

Mary J. Blige and her production team, The Clutch (Keri Hilson), have been sued by songwriters Jay Ballard and Kim Jones, who claim that the R&B Queen and her entourage have stolen the song Take Me As I Am.

The song was the fourth single released from Blige’s seventh studio album, The Breakthrough(2005), produced by Ron Fair and Infinity. Take Me As I Amwas an immediate success for its powerful lyrical content and the message it spread.

Take Me As I Am samples Lonnie Liston Smith’s Garden OfPeace, a song from the 1979 album Dreams Of Tomorrow. On his website, Smith wrote that “Mary J. really captured my original feel with this song, and it sends a very important message to today’s young ladies. Be confident in yourself, stay true to yourself, and not what others say or want you to be!”

Mary J. and The Clutch will have to explain the copyright violation to United States District Court in the Central District of California.

According to the lawsuit, Ballard and Jones, who wrote and copyrighted the song in 1995, ask for an accounting for all singles and albums sold in all formats, royalties and an accounting of publishing income derived from using the song in advertisements.