Nicki Minaj will be paying $450,000 to Tracy Chapman as a result of Tracy’s copyright suit.
Tracy filed the suit against Nicki for sampling her 1988 hit “Baby Can I Hold You” in the leaked track “Sorry” featuring Nas.
The $450,000 settlement will resolve all costs and attorney fees related to the case and neither Tracy nor Nicki will be taking the case to trial.
While “Sorry” never made it to Nicki’s ‘Queen’ album, Funkmaster Flex did get his hands on the song and it played on the radio — which in turn caused the song to end up on the internet.
Nicki argued in court that “Sorry” didn’t infringe on Tracy’s copyright because she simply experimented with the song and never released it. The argument earned Nicki a win during the legal process, but it wasn’t enough to prevent the matter from proceeding to trial.
$450,000, however, was enough.
