Pop star Katy Perry’s hit new single Dark Horse led to a lawsuit from a group of Christian rappers who allege that part of the song has been stolen from them and irreparably tarnished with messages of paganism. The four Christian hip-hop singers, namely Flame (Marcus Gray), Lecrae (Moore), Chike Ojukwu and Da T.R.U.T.H. (Emanuel Lambert) filed the lawsuit against Perry and the producer of the track Capitol Records.

According to the lawsuit, Perry has stolen riffs from Joyful Noise, a song by Flame that belongs to the album Our World: Redeemed, which was nominated for the Best Rock or Rap Gospel Album category for Grammy Awards in 2008. Flame and Lecrae say that the religious message of their track has been irreparably tarnished by Perry’s associating part of the song with paganism, witchcraft, black magic and the illuminati.

The music video for the song portrays the famed pop star as an Egyptian royalty performing magic inside a grand palace. Perry claims that her song was inspired by the 1996 film “The Craft” where she heard the quote, “So you wanna play with magic, boy you should know what you’re falling for.”

Fans of both songs reported similarities in their introductions after Dark Horse’s release and most of them said that the track was a mix of Joyful Noise. Additionally, the imagery in Perry’s video also led to her criticism from various quarters. For instance, she was accused of blasphemy for wearing a pendant in the video that was shaped like the Arabic symbol for the word Allah. Dark Horse was released in September last year and the track reached the No. 1 slot on Billboard charts by New Year.

Perry herself is a pastor’s daughter and though she started her career as a Christian artist, she has said that she kept her faith only during her early years as a pop icon. After she put on a bad-girl image with her first single I Kissed a Girl, she took the liberty to denounce Christianity publicly.

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