Chris Brown has reached a settlement in principle that will remove him and a group of Universal Music companies from a copyright lawsuit brought by a songwriter who said he was not properly credited or paid for two of the singer’s tracks, Sensational and Monalisa.
The deal is set out in a notice of settlement filed in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York on Monday (June 8), which you can read here.
It resolves songwriter Steve Chokpelle‘s claims against Brown and the Universal entities, the notice says, “in their entirety.”
The settling defendants are Chris Brown Entertainment, LLC, Songs of Universal (which does business as Culture Beyond Ur Experience Publishing), Universal Music Publishing, Inc. and Universal Music Group, Inc.
“The parties have reached a settlement in principle that will resolve Plaintiff’s claims against Defendants, as well as co-defendant Chris Brown, in their entirety,” the notice reads.
“The settlement will bring an end to this matter as it pertains to Defendants and Brown.”
Terms were not disclosed, and the parties asked Judge Loretta A. Preska to pause the case for 30 days so the agreement can be put in writing before a stipulation of dismissal is filed.
The request “is made in good faith, not for the purpose of delay, and seeks to promote judicial economy,” the notice states.
The settlement does not cover one co-defendant: Kisean Paul Anderson, the singer known as Sean Kingston.
It “shall in no manner extend to” the claims against Kingston, his company Time is Money Entertainment, LLC and a set of unnamed defendants, the notice says, “which claims have not been resolved.”
Chokpelle, who performs as Muso, sued in February, alleging he wrote lyrics for the two songs but was excluded from the credits and the revenues.
He said he was at Brown‘s Los Angeles home with Kingston in 2020 when Brown asked him to write Monalisa, according to the complaint, which you can read here.
A 2022 remix of Monalisa featuring Nigerian artists Lojay and Sarz, with Brown, reached No. 8 on Billboard‘s U.S. Afrobeats Songs chart.
The complaint said Chokpelle also wrote the follow-up, Sensational, which appeared on Brown’s 2023 album 11:11 and reached No. 1 on Billboard‘s Mainstream R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay chart.
That track generated more than USD $1 million in revenues, the lawsuit said, while Chokpelle received “no revenues whatsoever.”
“Defendants sustained a tremendous benefit, and shall continue to receive tremendous benefit… from the commercial exploitation of Monalisa and Sensational,” the complaint said, alleging Defendants deprived him of his “proper accreditation as author and owner” and his “properly entitled compensation.”
The suit also named Sony Music Entertainment and sought a court order declaring Chokpelle an author and copyright owner of both songs.
Lawyers for Brown and the Universal companies, from the firm Pryor Cashman, had moved to dismiss on statute-of-limitations and other grounds, and Brown had separately moved to throw out the case for improper service; those motions were pending when the settlement was filed.
It is not the first songwriting claim to land on Brown‘s catalog.
In 2021, songwriters Braindon Cooper and Timothy Valentine sued Brown, Drake and others in Florida federal court, claiming the 2019 hit No Guidance copied their song I Love Your Dress and seeking damages.
That case, defended by the same Pryor Cashman attorney now acting for Brown, James Sammataro, was terminated in September 2022.
Court records show Brown was also sued in the same Manhattan court in 2021 by publisher Greensleeves Publishing, in a case that was voluntarily dismissed in 2023.
Kingston, who has not yet responded to Chokpelle‘s complaint, is serving a 42-month federal prison sentence imposed in August 2025, after he and his mother were convicted of defrauding luxury-goods vendors of more than $1 million.Music Business Worldwide
