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Mary J. Blige and her production team, The Clutch, have been sued by songwriters
Jay Ballard and Kim Jones, who claim that the R&B Queen and her entourage have stolen the song Take Me As I Am.
The song was the fourth single released from Blige’s seventh studio album, The Breakthrough (2005), produced by Ron Fair and Infinity. Take Me As I Am was an immediate success for its powerful lyrical content and the message it spread. Take Me As I Am samples Lonnie Liston Smith’s Garden Of Peace, a song from the 1979 album Dreams Of Tomorrow.
Mary J. and The Clutch will have to explain the copyright violation to United States District Court in the Central District of California.
According to the lawsuit, Ballard and Jones, who wrote and copyrighted the song in 1995, ask for an accounting for all singles and albums sold in all formats, royalties and an accounting of publishing