Stella Lefty Gave Noah Kahan ‘Boston’ Credit to Avoid Legal Fight Over ‘Stick Season’

Stella Lefty gave Noah Kahan a songwriting credit on her breakout hit “Boston” after his representatives raised concerns about its similarity to “Stick Season,” a decision the rising country-pop singer says was made to avoid a legal fight.

Kahan did not take part in writing “Boston.” Lefty says his representatives contacted her team after listeners began comparing the song with Kahan’s 2022 hit, prompting her side to add him as a writer before “Boston” was officially released.

The arrangement has drawn new attention as “Boston” has become one of the biggest songs of the year. The track is currently No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Lefty, whose legal name is Stella Lefkofsky, told Vanity Fair that she wrote the chorus shortly after meeting her boyfriend, country singer Vincent Mason, and posted a clip online before completing the song.

Listeners quickly began pointing out similarities to “Stick Season.”

“When I was writing the song, I wasn’t thinking about Noah Kahan,” Lefty told the magazine.

She said she initially did not recognize the resemblance. Kahan’s representatives later contacted her team and said they believed the songs sounded similar.

Lefty and her representatives chose to give Kahan a writing credit rather than allow the disagreement to develop into a copyright dispute.

“I don’t want to step on anybody’s toes,” she said.

There is no indication that Kahan filed a lawsuit or personally threatened to sue. The credit appears to have resolved the issue before the song reached the market.

The released version of “Boston” is now credited as containing an interpolation connected to “Stick Season.” Unlike a sample, which uses audio taken directly from an existing recording, an interpolation recreates part of an earlier song’s composition, such as a melody, lyric or musical phrase.

Permission is generally required from the owners of the underlying composition when protected material is deliberately reused.

Lefty, however, maintains that she did not set out to interpolate Kahan’s song. According to her account, his credit was added only after his representatives raised concerns about the resemblance.

That distinction matters because a songwriting credit does not amount to a public admission that copyright infringement occurred.

Copyright law does not protect a musical genre, an artist’s general sound or broad stylistic similarities. It can protect original expression, including melodies, lyrics, and other elements of a composition. A court considering an infringement claim would focus on whether protected material was copied, not simply whether two songs sound alike.

The agreement can also carry financial consequences.

Songwriters can receive royalties when a track is streamed, sold, played on the radio, publicly performed, or licensed. Kahan is now listed as a writer on one of 2026’s biggest singles, although the ownership split and financial terms have not been made public.

Lefty’s claim that the resemblance was unintentional has received additional scrutiny because older videos circulating online show her performing “Stick Season” before she wrote “Boston.” In one widely shared compilation, she describes Kahan as one of her favorite artists.

The videos do not establish that she copied his song. They could, however, be relevant to the question of access if a copyright dispute reached court. Evidence that a songwriter was familiar with an earlier work can support a claim of copying, but access alone does not prove infringement.

The controversy comes as Lefty faces broader questions about her rapid rise in country music.

The 24-year-old is the daughter of Eric Lefkofsky, the billionaire entrepreneur who co-founded Groupon and founded health technology company Tempus AI. Her family background has fueled online criticism describing her as a “nepo baby” or “industry plant,” although her father does not come from the music business.

Lefty has acknowledged that growing up wealthy gave her advantages, including the ability to devote time to music, while rejecting suggestions that her career was simply purchased for her.

Other songs on her debut album, “Long Way Home,” have also drawn attention for their connections to earlier recordings.

“Summer You Were Mine,” for example, contains a clear interpolation of The Chicks’ “There’s Your Trouble.”

Listeners have separately compared “Why Wouldn’t We” with Blake Shelton’s “I’ll Name the Dogs,” although no similar songwriting arrangement has been publicly reported.

The situation involving “Boston” is more concrete because Kahan’s representatives contacted Lefty’s team and he ultimately received a songwriting credit.

The agreement kept the dispute out of court before “Boston” became a major commercial success.

Kahan is now formally credited as a writer on a No. 2 hit he did not originally help create, while Lefty avoided having the similarity between the songs tested in a copyright lawsuit.