Travis Scott, SZA Copyright Lawsuit Over ‘Telekinesis’ Dropped by Accuser: ‘Decided to Forgive’
Written by Nitro Pulse Radio on June 3, 2026
A singer who accused Travis Scott, SZA and Future of stealing their 2023 hit “Telekinesis” from an unreleased demo track she created with Ye (the artist formerly known as Kanye West) has now dropped her lawsuit — telling Billboard that she has “decided to forgive” Scott and move on.
The case was filed last year by Victory Boyd, a gospel singer who alleged the stars needed her approval to adapt her “Like The Way It Sounds” — a 2019 demo she recorded while collaborating with Ye — into “Telekinesis,” which spent 11 weeks on the Hot 100.
The trio of hitmakers strongly denied any wrongdoing, but a federal judge refused to dismiss the case in March, potentially setting the stage for years of costly litigation and an eventual jury trial.
It won’t get there now. In a court filing Wednesday (June 3), attorneys for both sides said they had agreed for the case to be voluntarily dismissed. There was no suggestion of a settlement in court filings, and an attorney for the stars declined a request for comment or more details.
In a statement to Billboard, Boyd’s lawyer Keith White said her client had gone through “an internal spiritual process” before ending the case. He stressed that Boyd had always been credited as a co-writer on “Telekinesis” and would continue receiving publishing royalties but would forgo damages she might have secured by winning the case.
“After some internal reflection, Victory decided to forgive Travis Scott and move past a legal process that felt like it was draining her creatively and spiritually. Victory is moving forward to focus on her art, her ministry and her life,” White said. “She sends her blessings to all of the parties in the case and is excited to move forward.”
Ye was never named as a defendant in the case nor accused of any wrongdoing.
First filed in January 2025, Boyd’s case offered an alleged behind-the-scenes glimpse into how superstar artists create hit songs — and how legal lines can easily get blurred in the process.
She claimed that Ye had provided her with “some chords and melodies that he liked” in 2019, and had asked her to write music with them. She said she then created lyrics and recorded a demo of “Like The Way It Sounds” as a voice memo, which she shared with the rapper.
The song never made it onto a Ye album, but Boyd claimed that the star eventually shared it with Scott, who allegedly used it to create “Telekinesis” with SZA and Future. While she was fully credited as a co-writer on that hit song, Boyd claimed that she had “never granted permission” for her demo to be used in the first place, making it a case of copyright infringement.
Scott, SZA and Future quickly fired back that the lawsuit was fatally-flawed. They said the demo at issue had been legally co-written by Ye, who provided them with the track and green-lit its usage. They also said Boyd had lied when she tried to secure a copyright registration by calling herself the sole author of the demo, meaning she had no grounds to sue.
But in March, a federal judge said it was far too early to decide those issues. She said there was little evidence one way or the other about the “collaborative relationship between her and Ye” and thus she could not rule on whether Ye was the co-creator of the demo.
The case also initially named Audemars Piguet as a defendant, accusing the Swiss watchmaker of infringement for using “Telekinesis” in advertising videos. But Boyd dropped the company from the case last summer.
