Ed Sheeran sang Blackstreet’s “No Diggity” in London’s High Court during his copyright trial where it is alleged he stole the melody for “Shape of You”.
Performing the song in an attempt to demonstrate how common the melody it uses is, Sheeran also sang part of Nina Simone’s classic “Feeling Good”.
Sheeran is being accused by Sam Chokri of lifting a refrain from his 2015 single “Oh Why” but denies all accusations that he had ever heard the song before co-writing “Shape of You” with Steve Mac and Johnny McDaid.
However, Sheeran admitted that the songs sound similar: “Fundamentally, yes, they are based around the pentatonic scale [and] they both have vowels in them.”
He also admitted that an earlier version of the song was too similar to “No Diggity”. He said: “We thought it was a bit too close to a song called ‘No Diggity’ by Blackstreet. I said that was a bit close to the bone [and] we should change it.”
Since the start of the lawsuit in 2018, the royalties from “Shape of You”, which are estimated to be around £20m, have been frozen.
Also during the trial, Sheeran revealed that “Shape of You”, which is the most listened to song on Spotify, was not originally supposed to be on his Divide album: “I thought this song clashed with ‘Castle On The Hill’. It doesn’t fit with the rest of the album, I didn’t want to put it out and I was subsequently proved wrong.”
Sheeran also disclosed that he had originally envisioned “Shape of You” for Little Mix or Rihanna.
Follow live updates from the trial here.
