Rochester native Yung Gravy sued by Rick Astley for sampling 'Never Gonna Give You Up'

Jan. 27—LOS ANGELES — Rochester native Yung Gravy is being sued by Rick Astley for Gravy's use of Astley's 1987 hit song "Never Gonna Give You Up," in Gravy's 2022 song "Betty (Get Money),"

TMZ first reported this week

.

Yung Gravy, real name Matthew Hauri, graduated from Mayo High School in 2014, and started to see

fame during his junior year of college at UW Madison

.

TMZ reported that Astley said Gravy and his producers "conspired to include a deliberate and nearly indistinguishable imitation of. Mr. Astley's voice throughout the song."

Billboard

reports the lawsuit says the interpolation sounds more like a sample, accusing Yung Gravy of deliberately impersonating Astley's voice and violating his right of publicity.

"The public could not tell the difference. The imitation of Mr. Astley's voice was so successful the public believed it was actually Mr. Astley singing," the complaint says.

Gravy allegedly got permission to use the underlying musical composition, or interpolating, but not a license for an actual sample so he hired Popnick to allegedly attempt to "sound identical" to Astley.

The '80s icon is reportedly seeking millions from the soundalike, using a 1988 court ruling in which Bette Midler successfully sued Ford over commercials with a Midler impersonator.

Gravy told the Post Bulletin in 2018 that he's focused on making music for people to party to, relying on obscure funk and soul samples to give his beats the right amount of "wave." It's a practice he still uses: Gravy picks samples and his producers will craft beats from them.

"Groovy stuff. Wavy is a way I could describe a lot of the samples I use. People don't give enough attention to these old soul and funk sounds. The kids nowadays who listen to my music never got a taste of that. It's cool to give them that," he said.