INSIDE THIS REPORT

• A federal judge is reconsidering a key ruling in a sprawling copyright battle over reggaeton's foundational rhythm.
• Bad Bunny's legal team says the plaintiffs stitched together unrelated musical elements into a "Frankenstein" beat that no one actually owns.
• The case could reshape how courts treat genre-defining rhythms used across dozens of hit songs, including tracks by Drake and Bad Bunny.

By Samuel López | USA Herald

A Los Angeles courtroom became the unlikely setting this past week for a legal showdown that could redefine who owns the sound of reggaeton itself. U.S. District Judge Andre Birrotte Jr. told attorneys he would need to "mull this nightmare over some more" before deciding whether to revisit his own prior ruling — a rare moment of judicial candor that hints at just how tangled this case has become.

At the center of the dispute is "Fish Market," a 1989 Jamaican track recorded by producing duo Cleveland "Clevie" Browne and Wycliffe "Steely" Johnson, better known as Steely & Clevie. The two are credited by many music historians as architects of the rhythmic backbone that would later evolve into dembow, the propulsive beat pattern powering nearly every reggaeton hit of the last three decades.

That legacy is now the subject of fierce courtroom combat. Between 2021 and 2022, the Steely & Clevie estate filed three separate lawsuits targeting a staggering 56 songs, arguing that artists across the music industry lifted the duo's original rhythmic architecture without credit or compensation. The accused track list reads like a modern hit parade, featuring Drake's global smash "One Dance" and Bad Bunny's "A Tu Merced."

Attorney Kenneth Freundlich, representing Bad Bunny, isn't disputing that these songs share rhythmic DNA. Instead, his defense strikes at the foundation of the plaintiffs' entire case: he argues the "original" selection and arrangement Steely & Clevie claim to own isn't original at all, but rather a patchwork of musical building blocks pulled from separate, pre-existing works and stitched together after the fact — a "Frankenstein" creation assembled from parts that were never legally protectable to begin with.

It's a defense strategy with real teeth. Copyright law protects original expression, not generic building blocks like a basic drum pattern or a common chord progression. If Freundlich can convince a jury that the plaintiffs are laying claim to musical Legos rather than a genuinely original composition, the entire foundation of the lawsuits could collapse — not just for Bad Bunny, but for every other artist named across the three suits.

Why the Judge Is Stuck

Judge Birrotte's original ruling didn't resolve the case outright — it punted the hardest questions to a jury, instructing them to decide whether "Fish Market" contains original, protectable elements at all. That's precisely what's now drawing pushback. Bad Bunny's team is asking the judge to take a second look, arguing that questions this technical and foundational may be better suited for a judge's legal analysis than a jury's gut instinct.

It's easy to see why the judge called it a nightmare. Untangling decades-old musical influence, separating what's genuinely original from what's simply part of a genre's shared vocabulary, and doing it all with global superstars and multimillion-dollar catalogs on the line is the kind of case that keeps entertainment lawyers up at night — and this one is far from over.

What happens next could ripple well beyond one courtroom. A ruling favoring Steely & Clevie's estate could open the floodgates for similar claims against reggaeton and dembow artists worldwide. A win for Bad Bunny's side, on the other hand, could set a lasting precedent protecting rhythmic building blocks that entire genres are built upon.

Stay Ahead of the Story

Subscribe to the USA Herald newsletter and never miss a story that matters.

👉 Follow us on X: https://x.com/RealUSAHerald