Alicia Keys sued by songwriter over Girl On Fire for using an 'uncredited sample'

Afrik Update

Alicia Keys is being sued over the single, with songwriter Earl Shuman claiming the singer's latest track bears similarities to his and Leon Carr's 1962 composition Lonely Boy.

Best known for being recorded in 1972 by Eddie Holman under the title Hey There Lonely Girl, the part of the song Shuman is concerned with is in the middle section.

Alicia sings: 'Nobody knows that she's a lonely girl / And it's a lonely world / But she's gonna let it burn, baby, burn, baby, burn.'

According to the Hollywood Reporter, Shuman alleges the particular way in which Alicia sings the words 'lonely girl' are reminiscent of his hit. 

He was initially alerted to the similarities between the two tracks by blogger Roger Friedman, who wrote: 'In the middle of the song, Alicia sings a couplet or so from Eddie Holman's 1970 classic Hey There Lonely Girl.

'Keys only uses two seconds of the original, but it helps make her record.'

He also called the use of the words an 'uncredited sample'. 

Although Shuman has filed a complaint of copyright infringement, his lawsuit has little further evidence to back up his claims. 

If a court rules a sample or section of Lonely Boy has been used without permission, Alicia could face losing royalties from both the track and the Girl on Fire album it appears on.

The 31-year-old singer previously said: 'Before making this record, in some ways I felt like a lion locked in a cage.

'I felt like a girl misunderstood that no one really knew, I felt like it was time to stop making excuses for any part of my life that I wanted to change. Once I made that choice I became a Girl on Fire, the lion broke free! (sic)'