In 1997, New York rapper Puff Daddy, also known as Diddym, released a new single entitled ‘I’ll Be Missing You’ in collaboration with Faith Evans and 112, dedicated to the memory of the artist Notorious BIG, who had been shot dead on March 9 of that same year. And it devastated her: she was the winner of a Grammy Award, was number one in the United States, Great Britain, Australia, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands and New Zealand, sold more than five million copies and remained at number one on Billboard Hot 100 for eleven weeks and No. 1 on Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs for eight. In short, it became one of the most commercially successful singles of all time.
It was a good song, but it had a trick: it based much of its charm on a sample from the well-known ‘Every Breath You Take’ from The Police. And he hadn’t asked permission from his authors. According to him, the rush was due to the fact that he had experienced a kind of epiphany.
The musician explained that in the days before the recording of ‘I’ll Be Missing You’, he had been contemplating quitting the profession after learning of his colleague’s death, but was suddenly motivated after hearing The song. Police. «He was ready to leave music. He wasn’t going to release any more records. Then I was watching TV one day, you know, one of those desperate moments where there’s no one around and you’re kind of crying on the floor. And then I heard ‘Every Breath You Take’ by The Police. I just took it as a sign. Sometimes you just need a little light to be able to express yourself.”
As soon as Sting, its author, found out, he filed a lawsuit demanding that he be paid one hundred percent of the royalties generated by the hit. But it was never known again… until five years ago, when in an interview, the British artist assured that he earned two thousand dollars a day thanks to his judicial victory.
However, apparently it is more than double, since after the video of the aforementioned interview with Sting went viral again, Puff Daddy himself has corrected through his Twitter account: “No, there are 5,000.” Which means the rapper pays nearly $2 million a year to the former frontman of The Police (more than $47 million from 1997 to today), who last year was listed as the highest-earning solo artist in Forbes’ annual breakdown. of the highest paid artists. The announcement came after the frontman sold his entire discography, including his work with The Police, to Universal Music Group for £168 million.
Sample, a classic ‘robot’
This has been going on for decades in the music industry. One of the most recent and notorious cases was carried out a few months ago by Kanye West. The rapper was sued for sampling without permission ‘Move Your Body’, a song by legendary house musician Marshall Jefferson on the ‘Donda 2’ album, specifically on the song ‘Flowers’. Jefferson’s publisher, Ultra International Music Publishing, filed suit in New York District Court, and West could face a multi-million dollar penalty.
Another current big star accused of sampling without permission recently is Beyoncé. Her latest album, ‘Renaissance’, includes a song called ‘Energy’ which parallels Kelis’s 2000 song ‘Get Along With You’. Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo of The Neptunes, who are the officially credited writers and producers of the original song, are credited for ‘Energy,’ but Kelis took to social media to blast Beyoncé for using her song without her permission. permission from her.
“It is not a collaboration, it is a robbery,” he wrote on his social networks. “My mind is also blown because the level of disrespect and complete ignorance from all 3 parties involved is staggering. I found out about this the same way as everyone else. Nothing is as it seems, some of the people in this business have no soul or integrity and they fool everyone.”
Another song from ‘Renaissance’, ‘Alien Superstar’, brought Beyoncé another displeasure for the same reason: it sampled Right Said Fred’s ‘I’m Too Sexy’, and when they found out, they harshly lashed out at her for not having told them asked permission personally, as other artists who had done the same, like Drake or Taylor Swift, had done. “Usually the artist approaches us, but Beyoncé didn’t because she’s such an arrogant person that she probably thought ‘you come get me.’ So we found out after what you did when it was already done.
However, in this case, it seems that Beyoncé had done things right and said it loud and clear on social networks: “Permission was requested from its publisher on May 11, 2022 and the publisher approved the use on June 15, 2022. They were paid for usage in August 2022.”