The opening lines of 50 Cent?s In Da Club were stolen from a song by former 2 Live Crew member Luther Campbell, alleges a lawyer in a lawsuit.

Richard C. Wolfe filed the suit on behalf Lil? Joe Wein Music against Curtis Jackson, aka 50 Cent, in Miami federal court last week.

The suit claims that the beginning of In Da Club, in which Jackson raps, “Go, go, go go/Go, go, go Shorty/It’s your birthday/We’re gonna party like it’s yo birthday,” was stolen from the 1994 ditty It?s Your Birthday, where Campbell shouts, “Go Derrick, it’s your birthday/Go Derrick, it’s your birthday/Go Freddie, go, go, go/Go Freddie, go, go, go/It’s your birthday.”

Campbell?s song was released on his 1994 solo effort, Still a Freak for Life.

Because Campbell filed for bankruptcy that same year and gave control of his music catalogue to Lil? Joe Wein Music owner Joseph Weinberger, he is not a party to the lawsuit.

But Campbell did tell Florida?s Sun-Sentinel newspaper that In Da Club and It?s Your Birthday share “the same tone, same pitch, same melody” and sections containing “virtually the same lyrics.”

Jackson has refused to comment on the suit.






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