A federal lawsuit filed in Indianapolis accuses Radio One and morning host Rickey Smiley of using music written by an Indiana woman without her permission. Glenda West filed the handwritten complaint in U.S. District Court, alleging music used on the “Rickey Smiley Morning Show” contains material from a song she says she wrote and copyrighted in 2000. West identifies the song as “Too Too High.”
“I am trying to seek damages for a song I hear on ‘The Rickey Smiley Morning Show,” West writes in the six-page complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Indianapolis. She alleges the show’s theme or other program music uses her work and says Radio One and Smiley failed to obtain permission “to play my song or notes in their program.”
West says she first became aware of the alleged use while listening to Radio One’s R&B WTLC Indianapolis (106.7) and recording the “Rickey Smiley Morning Show” during its Cash Blast contest around October 2025. She says she was recording the program on cassette so she could listen for her name to be called as part of the contest. It was while listening back to the recordings that West says she noticed music during the show’s “Front Page” segment, which she desc...