Beyoncé Faces New Copyright Lawsuit Over 1998 House Sample Used in “Alien Superstar”

Nearly three decades after its release, an underground New York house record has found itself at the center of a major copyright battle involving Beyoncé. A new federal lawsuit alleges that the spoken-word sample opening “Alien Superstar,” from Beyoncé’s Grammy-winning 2022 album Renaissance, was licensed from someone who may no longer have owned the rights to it.

The recording in question is “Moonraker,” a 1998 house track by Foremost Poets, the project of artist John Holiday. Its now-famous spoken introduction — including the warning for listeners not to leave the dancefloor while the DJ booth “troubleshoots” the system — appears at the beginning of “Alien Superstar.” The lawsuit describes “Moonraker” as a fixture of house music and argues that its spoken intro became one of the genre’s recognizable vocal passages.

But the dispute isn’t as simple as Beyoncé allegedly using an uncleared sample. According to the complaint, “Alien Superstar” was initially released on July 29, 2022 without a license for the “Moonraker” recording. Roughly six weeks later, Parkwood Entertainment reportedly obtained a license directly from Holiday. He was allegedly paid $10,000 plus 0.5% of royalties generated by “Alien Superstar.”

That would normally be the end of the story. Except Shuji Hirose, the man behind the now-defunct New York house label Soundmen on Wax, claims Holiday no longer had the rights to license. Hirose alleges that Holiday transferred his entire interest in the “Moonraker” recording to the label under a 1998 agreement in exchange for $1,500 and a share of publishing revenue. If that claim is ultimately proven, the central question becomes whether Beyoncé’s team obtained permission from the wrong rights holder.

There is another complication: the original signed 1998 agreement is reportedly missing. According to the lawsuit, the document was lost when a storage facility containing the label’s records was burglarized in 2005. Hirose is instead pointing to later agreements, business records and Holiday’s subsequent dealings with him as evidence that the label side — rather than Holiday — controlled the recording. The complaint also alleges that Holiday acknowledged Hirose as the rightful holder of the “Moonraker” rights during an August 2022 phone conversation, an allegation that has yet to be adjudicated.

This lawsuit has already been to court once

This is actually the second lawsuit surrounding the same sample. An earlier case filed in July 2025 was dismissed by a federal judge on June 26, 2026 because the company bringing the action did not legally exist when it originally filed the lawsuit. Crucially, the judge did not rule on whether the “Moonraker” sample had actually been properly cleared. The dismissal concerned standing, not the underlying copyright dispute.

That distinction opened the door for another attempt. A new complaint was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California on August 10, 2026, this time naming Beyoncé Knowles-Carter herself alongside John Holiday, Parkwood Entertainment, Sony Music Entertainment, Sony Music Publishing and Warner Chappell entity W Chappell Music Corp.

The plaintiffs also allege that “Alien Superstar” and the sampled material continued to be exploited through streaming services and live performances, including Beyoncé’s Renaissance World Tour in 2023 and Cowboy Carter Tour in 2025. They are seeking damages, profits attributable to the alleged infringement, an accounting and a permanent injunction. These remain allegations, and the court has not yet determined who ultimately owns the disputed rights or whether copyright infringement occurred.

For dance music fans, that is what makes the case particularly fascinating. This isn’t simply another story about a superstar being accused of sampling an old record. It is a dispute over the chain of ownership behind a piece of underground house music, with a deal allegedly made in 1998 now potentially affecting one of the biggest pop and dance albums released more than two decades later.

“Moonraker” may have started life as a New York house record pressed onto 12-inch vinyl in 1998. In 2026, the question of who owns its iconic voice sample has become a federal copyright case involving one of the biggest artists in the world.

You can listen to both records below.