Beyoncé has been named as a defendant in a new copyright lawsuit over the sample that opens ‘Alien Superstar,’ the third track on 2022’s Grammy-winning album Renaissance.Ad 0:00 Click for sound 0:00 / 0:00 The complaint was filed August 10 in the U.S.
District Court for the Central District of California by Hirose Enterprise LLC and Shuji Hirose, who operated the now-defunct New York house label Soundmen on Wax.It alleges that the spoken-word introduction to Foremost Poets’ 1998 track ‘Moonraker’ was used in ‘Alien Superstar’ without proper authorization, according to Music Business Worldwide.
According to the complaint, Beyoncé and her management company, Parkwood Entertainment, released ‘Alien Superstar’ in July 2022 with no license for the ‘Moonraker’ recording.A license was reportedly obtained roughly six weeks later from John Holiday, the artist behind Foremost Poets.
The plaintiffs allege, however, that Holiday had already transferred his full interest in the recording to Soundmen on Wax under a 1998 agreement for $1,500.The original signed copy of that contract was reportedly lost in a 2005 burglary.
The complaint further alleges that Parkwood knew or should have known Holiday lacked the authority to license the recording, given its two-decade commercial history under the Soundmen on Wax label.The plaintiffs point to Holiday’s own later dealings as evidence he recognized Hirose’s claim to the recording.
“Holiday’s own conduct… confirms Holiday’s recognition that the rights in the Moonraker Sound Recording were held and administered on the Hirose side of the 1998 Agreement, and not by Holiday,” the complaint states.This is the second time Hirose has sued over the same ‘Alien Superstar’ sample.
His first attempt, filed in July 2025 under a Florida-registered company, was dismissed by a judge in June 2026 for lack of standing because the...