Karol G Hit With Copyright Lawsuit Over ‘Mañana Será Bonito’ Track ‘Gatúbela’: ‘Strikingly Similar’
Two little-known producers say the singer stole key elements for a song off the chart-topping album.
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Karol G and Universal Music Group (UMG) are facing a copyright infringement lawsuit over a track from the Colombian superstar’s chart-topping album Mañana Será Bonito.
In a case filed in Miami federal court, producers Ocean Vibes (Jack Hernandez) and Alfr3d Beats (Dick Alfredo Caballero Rodriguez) say the singer and her co-writers stole key elements of her 2022 song “Gatúbela” from a song called “Punto G” they had released less than two months earlier.
“By every method of analysis, Gatúbela is a forgery,” lawyers for Hernandez and Rodriguez wrote in the Wednesday complaint. “Gatúbela is substantially similar to the Work in critical respects that are not just incidental but rather go the core of each work.”
Released in February 2023, Mañana Será Bonito was a critical and commercial success, winning album of the year at the Latin Grammy Awards and reaching No. 1 on the Billboard 200 — the first all-Spanish language album by a woman to do so. “Gatúbela” was a hit in its own right, reaching No. 37 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 4 on the Hot Latin Songs chart.
But Hernandez and Rodriguez say that they “immediately recognized” the song’s similarities to their “Punto G,” and that a musicologist later reported to them that the main synthesizer riff and vocal chorus melody of Gatúbela were “extremely similar” to the synth melody in their song.
“According to the expert musicologist, the level of similarity between Gatúbela and the Work is ‘one we almost never see,’” the pair’s lawyers wrote.
In an unusual twist, the lawsuit says that one of the producers on the Karol G song — DJ Maff (Marvin Hawkins Rodriguez) — tacitly admitted to copying the earlier track: The lawsuit came with screenshots of an alleged Instagram exchange in which Alfr3d confronted Maff over the similarities.
“DJ Maff shockingly admitted this was true, responding ‘no le digas a nadie’ (translated: ‘don’t tell anybody’), accompanied by a laughing emoji,” attorneys for the pair write. “As part of his attempt to cover up his admitted theft and misappropriation, DJ Maff would later delete both Alfr3d’s comment and his own response from Instagram.”
Representatives for both Karol G and UMG did not immediately return requests for comment.
