(AllHipHop News) Soul star Angie Stone has threatened to sue Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars, accusing them of stealing her 1979 single “Funk You Up.”
Stone recorded the track almost 40 years ago when she was a member of girl band The Sequence, and she insists Mars and Ronson’s Grammy-winning hit “Uptown Funk” is a rip-off.
“As far as I’m concerned the song belongs to us,” Angie told The Sun. “We have been robbed, railroaded, overlooked and completely disrespected.
“Everyone got paid but my group. The truth of the matter is no one on that suit deserves it more than The Sequence because those lyrics are ours – ‘Funk You Up’ was ours. We branded it in 1979… Their record was not recorded before ours and I think it is because we are women on the ballot and we are getting railroaded. The truth is we have been trying to sue them long before the record became Record of the Year (at the Grammys).”
Angie reveals she has had to wait to file suit because until now no lawyer has agreed to take on her complaint and tackle the power of Warner Bros.
But the groundbreaking “Blurred Lines” lawsuit filed by Marvin Gaye’s heirs against Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams has given her a big boost, especially when the Gaye’s won a multi-million settlement by claiming Thicke and Pharrell ripped off soul legend Marvin’s 1970s song “Got To Give It Up.”
Stone adds, “A lot of attorneys didn’t want to take the job because the industry is crazy because they don’t want to p**s off Bruno Mars. If my group cannot afford the millions of dollars it would take to fight for it, then they would pay millions to keep the lawyers fighting. They know beyond a shadow of a doubt that if we ever got through the ranks we’d take everybody out.”
