Producer Enlists Musicologist for Lawsuit Against Lil Wayne

The producer suing Lil Wayne for the beat to "Mrs. Officer" has hired a musicologist as an expert witness for the case.

Lil Wayne's lawsuit over the beat for his Bobby V-assisted 2008 hit "Mrs. Officer" has taken a turn for the worse. Now, the plaintiff Michael "Mali Boy" Bradford has enlisted the aid of an expert musicologist to testify in his case against the Young Money rapper.

Bradford filed the suit back in January 2009 claiming that he had originally made the beat five years prior to its release. Producer Deezle had apparently reworked the beat, originally titled "Popeye," for Wayne's Tha Carter III and received all of the credit for its production.

Now, Bradford has hired Dr. Felicia M. Miyakawa of Middle Tennessee State University to testify on his behalf as an expert witness in musicology. Miyakawa, an Associate Professor of Musicology and Assistant Director of the MTSU School of Music, compared Deezle and Bradford's versions of the song and says that there is enough similarity to bring the suit to court.

"Hip-Hop producers have become adept at reducing samples to smaller and smaller chunks of sound and reordering sampled bits so that the source material will be unrecognizable," she wrote. "But if random V103 audience members can hear these striking similarities, clearly the producer of 'Mrs. Officer' did not hide the source material and in particular the riffs - adequately. Further, these riffs are the most identifiable parts of a larger groove that establishes the identity of a previously copyrighted song."

AllHipHop has also provided a musical chart highlghting the similarities bewtween the two songs.
Bradford isn't the only person suing Weezy for "Mrs. Officer." Apparently, Deezle is also suing Weezy F. for $2.5 million worth of royalties for the very same song.