- Trump’s side will argue Grant never copyrighted the master for his 1983 hit “Electric Avenue.”
- Grant sued Trump four years ago over an anti-Biden campaign tweet that used the song.
Lawyers for former president Donald Trump and dance-floor icon Eddy Grant are “gonna rock down to” a Manhattan courtroom on Friday for a face-to-face fight over the musician’s ’80s hit “Electric Avenue.”
Grant sued Trump four years ago for tweeting an anti-Biden cartoon that used 40 seconds of the song as a soundtrack. The August 2020 tweet was viewed 13.7 million times before Twitter took it down, and Grant says this was an unauthorized use for which Trump owes him $300,000 in damages.
The UK citizen and Barbados resident is one of some two dozen artists who have objected to Trump’s use of their music during his three presidential campaigns. But no musician has tangled with Trump more publicly and extensively than Grant.
Most artists simply send cease-and-desist letters, with only Grant and two others actually filing lawsuits. (Neil Young’s 2020 suit against Trump — for the former president’s use of “Rockin’ in the Free World” and “Like a Hurricane” at rallies — quietly settled for an undisclosed sum four months after it was filed. The estate of Isaac Hayes sued Trump in August over his use of “Hold on, I’m Coming,” and that case is just getting started.)
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