samples
In early March, a new James Brown recording strutted onto a Billboard chart for the first time in more than three decades. But Brown, the incendiary funk pioneer who died in 2006, wasn’t going viral on TikTok or putting out albums of previously unreleased material. Instead, he had been sampled by the rapper 310babii, who credited the Godfather of Soul as a featured artist on the new track, titled “Bad.” When the single subsequently hit the Rhythmic Airplay chart, Brown came along for the ride.
A prominent credit for a sampled act has the potential to propel an older name back into the conversation for “a whole new, young audience of fans,” says Karla Redding, daughter of Otis Redding. For legacy acts or artist estates, getting such exposure is more valuable than ever: It can frictionlessly translate into consumption at a time when listening to catalog tracks on streaming platforms is as easy as pulling up last week’s releases. And now that artists’ name and likeness rights have become a more desirable commodity for the investor class, a new wave of listeners raises the value of those rights.
Trending on Billboard
Getting a credit for a sampled vocalist isn’t easy, though. “Most people don’t want to credit samples [in that way],” says Rob Sevier, co-founder of Numero Group, which gets about three sample requests a week.
To prevail in clearance negotiations, the sampled artist needs leverage and a good lawyer. And negotiations can be charged. “All clearances are emotional,” explains Deborah Mannis-Gardner, president of DMG Clearances. “Someone either wrote this song or they recorded it — it’s their baby. [In many cases,] it’s up to them to decide, do they want it altered by it being incorporated into another song?”
They can benefit by saying yes. Sampled artists who get co-billing raise their profile on streaming services. On Spotify, if an act is credited as a collaborator on both the “product level” (where the artists are listed under the title of the single) and the “track level” (where the artists are listed below and to the right of the “play” button), any plays count towards their “monthly listener” number. For an estate that no longer puts out previously unreleased music, this is a way to pump up an often-cited metric on a popular platform.
And in recent years, many legacy artists have sold part or all of their name, image and likeness rights, including Stevie Nicks, the Beach Boys, Bryan Ferry and Pink Floyd. If a sample clearance is done right, those “NIL rights can get boosted through new audience recognition,” says Jason Boyarski, an entertainment attorney who handles the estates of Donny Hathaway and Antônio Carlos Jobim, among others. That in turn can “help boost brand-related projects like biopics, documentaries and musicals.”
In Mannis-Gardner’s view, though, awarding a sampled singer co-billing is unseemly — the sampler is giving away the farm, paying more than they need to for a license. “When I do sample clearances, I work very hard on behalf of my clients not to grant feature credit,” Mannis-Gardner adds, unless her client directs her otherwise.
Some sampled artists don’t request to have their name in the lights. Kendrick Lamar‘s “luther” borrows a piece of Cheryl Lynn and Luther Vandross‘ “If This World Were Mine,” a tender lover’s duet originally written by Marvin Gaye in 1967. Although Vandross’ voice, glistening like fresh snow, is the first vocal on “luther,” he is not billed as a featured artist on the track.
David Gottlieb, who manages the Vandross estate, says it “didn’t ask for any sort of credit” in exchange for clearing the “If This World Were Mine” sample. “You don’t hear Luther and Cheryl a tremendous amount [on Lamar’s track],” he explains. “It would be obnoxious to ask for a feature.
“There’s always a discussion [internally],” Gottlieb continues. “We have our set of guidelines for samples [called] W.W.L.D. — What Would Luther Do? If someone is using Luther singing ‘Never Too Much’ in the chorus, we would raise our hand and say you need to put a feature in, if that was something we wanted.”
Primary Wave acquired a stake in Vandross’s publishing, master royalties and name and likeness rights in 2021. The company also works with Mark Morrison, the man behind “Return of the Mack,” a thunderous ’90s R&B single that reliably incites sing-alongs.
“In the last week, I’ve seen a license request for ‘Return of the Mack’ come across our desk,” says Justin Shukat, president of publishing at Primary Wave. “When we spoke to Mark, he’s like, ‘Yeah, I definitely want the feature.’”
While the music world mourns Roy Ayers, the Godfather of Neo-Soul and a jazz-funk pioneer who died at age 84 on March 4, the hip-hop community will always remember him as one of its brightest inspirations.
“Everybody Loves the Sunshine,” the enduring hit from Roy Ayers Ubiquity’s 1976 album of the same name, became the highlight of his legacy — and everybody loved it so much they couldn’t help but borrow a bit of its brilliance. The New York Times‘ obituary for Ayers reported that “Everybody Loves the Sunshine” has been sampled nearly 200 times.
“Well, I have more sampled hits than anybody,” he said in a 2004 interview with Wax Poetics. “I might not have more samples than James Brown, but I’ve had more sampled hits. Oh, man, and there’s a few I don’t know about.”
Mary J. Blige — who sampled “Everybody Loves the Sunshine” for “My Life” from her 1994 album of the same name, which was later interpolated on “MJB Da MVP” featuring 50 Cent, on her 2005 LP The Breakthrough — opened up about the song’s indelible impact on her in her 2021 documentary My Life. “I don’t know what’s in that record, but it was something in it that just cracked open everything in me. That was the first music as a child that stuck with me because it made me forget that we lived where we lived,” Blige said in the film. “‘My life in the sunshine’ was something I wanted.” The Queen of Hip-Hop Soul also heavily sampled Ayers’ 1976 track “Searching” on her 1997 album Share My World.
Like Blige, Dr. Dre, TLC, Juvenile and Joe Budden also have songs titled “My Life,” while Scarface and Naughty by Nature have songs called “Sunshine.” Thirty years after he sampled “Everybody Loves the Sunshine” on “Book of Life” from his 1994 album Resurrection, Common dug back in the crates and dusted off the sample for the Grammy-nominated song “When the Sun Shines,” featuring Posdnuos, from his and Pete Rock‘s 2024 Grammy-nominated joint LP The Auditorium Vol. 1.
Outside of being sampled and interpolated by hip-hop heavyweights, Ayers also collaborated with Tyler, the Creator on “Find Your Wings,” also featuring Syd and Kali Uchis, from Tyler’s 2015 album Cherry Bomb; Erykah Badu on “Cleva” from her 2000 LP Mama’s Gun; The Roots on “Proceed II” from the deluxe version of the band’s 2005 album Do You Want More?!!!??!; and Talib Kweli on “In the Mood,” also featuring Ye (formerly known as Kanye West), from his 2007 album Eardrum as well as on “Something Special” from Kweli and Madlib‘s 2024 joint LP Liberation 2.
“Roy Ayers called me like ‘tyler, hey man, those changes are amazing, your chord selection is just beautiful my man’ OMG MY HEART MELTED,” Tyler tweeted in 2015. The Chromakopia rapper also sampled Ayers’ 1982 track “Ooh” on “Pothole,” featuring Jaden Smith, from his 2017 album Flower Boy. Later that same year, Ayers performed at his Camp Flog Gnaw festival. Questlove hailed him as “the cat who birthed us all in the ‘vibes only’ movement. The Soundtrack that ALL the incense you ever burned was truly made for. Thank You Roy Edward Ayers Jr for EVERYTHING you gave us. taught us. showed us. soothed us.”
Billboard rounded up 21 hip-hop and R&B songs that have sampled and interpolated Roy Ayers Ubiquity’s “Everybody Loves the Sunshine,” in order from newest to oldest.
Common & Pete Rock feat. Posdnuos, “When the Sun Shines Again”
HipHopWired Featured Video
Roberta Flack, an enduring voice that the world got to know through her chart-topping and soul-stirring ballads, was a source of sound for several Hip-Hop producers over the years. As we continue to honor the life and legacy of the legendary vocalist, Hip-Hop Wired has compiled 10 songs that sampled Roberta Flack’s music.
My first time hearing Roberta Flack occurred when I was in elementary school via the song “Feel Like Makin’ Love,” a beautiful ballad written by the late Gene McDaniels. As I was still quite young, I didn’t know what the lyrics meant but what I could tell you then is that it sounded like what I imagined falling in love deeply was like. Roberta Flack’s serene, even-keeled voice sounded as if it descended from the heavens and few singers have had that effect on me.
As I aged, so did my pursuit of music which is where my devotion to Hip-Hop strengthened and learning about the intricacies of sampling in music production. However, few songs have captured the essence of Flack’s sonics to the level of The Fugees’ 1996 rendition of “Killing Me Softly With His Song” and the beauty of it all is that The Fugees had the honor of having Flack perform the global hit with them.—D.L. Chandler
Flack’s music just didn’t boost the sonic profile of The Fugees, but also gave strong backdrops to the likes of Scarface, Gang Starr, T.I. Ye, Memphis Bleek, Lil’ Kim, Biz Markie, and countless others. Below, we’re featuring 10 songs that sampled Roberta Flack’s classic music. Let us know on social media or in the comments if we missed any of your favorites.
—
Photo: Getty
02/14/2025
Billboard rounded up rap, R&B and Afrobeats songs by Rema, MF DOOM, Snoop Dogg, Burna Boy, Ashanti, Nipsey Hussle and Queen Latifah that sample and interpolate Sade.
02/14/2025
Universal Music Group wants a federal judge to dismiss a copyright lawsuit claiming Mary J. Blige’s 1992 hit “Real Love” used a famed 1973 funk sample without a license, arguing the accusers have popped up “out of the blue” to sue over two tracks that “sound nothing alike.”
The case, filed in earlier this year by Tuff City Records, claims Blige’s track borrowed from “Impeach the President” by the Honey Drippers — a legendary piece of hip-hop source material with a drum track that’s been sampled or interpolated by Run-DMC, Dr. Dre, Doja Cat and many others over the years.
But in a response on Tuesday, UMG argues that Tuff City’s case is deeply flawed and must be tossed out of court at the outset.
Trending on Billboard
“Now, more than 30 years after ‘Real Love’ was released, plaintiff appears out of the blue alleging that ‘Real Love’ contains an uncleared sample from ‘Impeach the President,’ with no allegations concerning the works’ substantial similarity,” the music giant wrote. “The absence of that allegation is fatal.”
One key claim in Tuff City’s lawsuit is that UMG’s recorded music unit (UMG Recordings, Inc.) has already reached a settlement regarding the use of the “Impeach” sample on the “Real Love” sound recording, but that UMG’s publishing arm is unfairly refusing to do the same for the musical composition.
In Tuesday’s response, UMG confirmed the existence of that earlier settlement over the sound recording, but said it was entirely separate and complete “irrelevant” to a dispute over the composition. UMG’s attorneys said the settlement did not admit that “Real Love” infringed “Impeach” — but that even if it had, Tuff City was “confusing” a basic distinction that lies at the heart of music copyright law.
“Plaintiff … insinuates that defendant infringes simply because non-party UMG settled plaintiff’s claim of infringement [over] the sound recording,” the company wrote. “Because there exist two separate copyrights in music … a work can readily infringe one without infringing the other.”
Blige’s “Real Love” spent 31 weeks on the Hot 100 in 1992 and reached a peak of No. 7 on the chart. It has remained one of the star’s most enduring hits, with more than 105 million spins on Spotify and a movie adaptation released by Lifetime last year.
Tuff City sued UMG over the track in April, claiming it had “advised defendant repeatedly” about the allegedly uncleared sample, but that Universal had done nothing about it: “Defendant has repeatedly refused to engage plaintiff in substantive negotiations to rectify the foregoing, let alone agreed to compensate plaintiff for the past infringement or on an ongoing basis.”
The lawsuit did not name Blige herself as a defendant nor accuse her of any wrongdoing.
Tuff City, which owns a large catalog of old songs, is no stranger to copyright litigation – filing cases over tracks by Jay-Z, Beastie Boys, Christina Aguilera, Frank Ocean with claims that they featured unlicensed samples or interpolations. The company has even already sued over “Impeach the President,” claiming in a 1991 complaint that it had been illegally sampled on the LL Cool J tracks “Around the Way Girl” and “Six Minutes of Pleasure.”
The company has won plenty of rulings and settlements, but the litigation process has not always gone smoothly. In 2014, a judge dismissed one Tuff City case over Jay-Z’s “Run This Town” on the grounds that any alleged sample was “barely perceptible” after multiple listens. In that ruling, the judge chided Tuff City over its approach to the case, saying it “incorrectly … assumes that every copying of any part of another artist’s protected work is infringement.”
In Tuesday’s motion seeking to dismiss the “Real Love” case, UMG directly cited that 2014 ruling – arguing that the two songs “sound nothing alike” and that Tuff City had failed to argue otherwise.
“Unwilling to learn from the lessons of its past, plaintiff again seeks to assert copyright liability without plausibly pleading substantial similarity with respect to the musical compositions at issue here,” the company wrote. “The copyright claim must accordingly be dismissed.”
An attorney for Tuff City did not immediately return a request for comment.
Many of Burna’s most celebrated songs have borrowed elements from some recognizable U.S. pop, soul and hip-hop favorites.
04/15/2024
Future & Metro Boomin, Drake, Young Thug, Lil Baby, Big Sean and French Montana all have this thing in common in their discography.
04/15/2024
Beyoncé doesn’t just drop albums, she drops incredibly dense, multilayered bodies of work that pull from decades of musical history across genres and regions to fashion something wholly new and idiosyncratic from the legacies of those who came before her. With the release of her eighth solo studio album, Cowboy Carter, on Friday (March 29), […]
During its first week of release, Vultures 1, the first full-length release from the artist formerly known as Kanye West and singer Ty Dolla $ign, changed distributors, was pulled from Apple Music temporarily and got cut by a song to ward off a possible copyright infringement issue brought up by Donna Summer’s estate. So far, the story of the album may be as interesting as the music itself — and Billboard has reported that some samples remain uncleared, which suggests that this could only be the beginning.
Like many hip-hop artists, Ye makes music that involves both snippets of other recordings (samples) and passages of other songs that are re-recorded (interpolations, which confusingly are often referred to as samples as well). Samples generally require a license from the owner of the recording and the underlying composition, while interpolations only require the latter. West seems to have cleared some of the samples and interpolations he’s used, but not all of them.
Trending on Billboard
There was a time when that would have been dangerous. When the music business was dominated by physical media, rights holders whose work was used without a license had the legal leverage they needed to take most, or even all, of the rights to a song, as ABKCO famously did with the Verve’s “Bitter Sweet Symphony,” which sampled a version of the ABKCO-controlled Rolling Stones song “The Last Time.” The Verve’s only other choice would have been to destroy all existing copies of the album it was on and stop promoting what became its breakthrough hit.
West won’t face those issues, partly because no single song on Vultures 1 depends as much on one sample or interpolation, and partly because the nature of streaming means that most music — most art, really — isn’t ever really final anymore. When the estate of Donna Summer said that West had used elements of “I Feel Love” without a license for “Good (Don’t Die),” the song was simply pulled offline. Uncleared samples could be re-recorded, if West can get permission from a publisher but not a label, or simply replaced by other musical elements. Albums can evolve for legal reasons as well as artistic ones.
This is an extreme example of what seems like a general trend, as is the Travis Scott album Utopia which Billboard recently reported has its own issues with songwriting credits and royalty splits. In this case, Scott worked with producers and co-writers but didn’t finalize all of the relevant agreements. Scott is far from the only artist to deal with this issue. Here, too, Scott’s collaborators could sue — although this would be a foolish move since many of them depend on his star power to market their work and the nature of streaming blunts potential legal threats.
In both cases, the balance of power in a licensing system that initially gave more leverage to songwriters and other rights holders is now tilting toward recording artists, especially powerful ones. That could be bad for other creators, because the less money they make, the more tempted they are to take any deal they can get to keep money coming in. In most cases, delays in negotiation and payment are just that — arranging all the co-writing deals gets very complicated because there’s only so much credit, and thus royalties, to go around. But the way the leverage shifts toward artists doesn’t exactly inspire their teams to deal with this as fast as possible.
The same kind of pressure doesn’t apply to publishers that control interpolation rights for older songs, but it’s important to remember that this money, too, goes to creators — often on better terms than streaming revenue does. Financial issues aside, creators also have the right to decide if they want to be associated with other creators, just as they have the right to turn down advertisement opportunities. In West’s case, Ozzy Osbourne turned down West’s request to sample a live version of “Iron Man,” which he wrote with his bandmates in Black Sabbath, because of West’s antisemitic comments. So West simply went ahead and sampled his own song, “Hell of a Life,” which uses the same riff. Osbourne should be able to prevent that — his team didn’t comment on West’s use of this other song — and he may decide to try.
The music business needs a code of conduct to deal with this situation before it gets any worse. If it’s overly strict to require artists to sort out all rights before the release of an album, a voluntary code could mandate having rough agreements in place or requiring final ones to be completed within a certain amount of time. The idea would be to give artists the time they need to sort out rights issues, within reasonable deadlines that will keep negotiations relatively equitable. If artists can’t figure out the credits issues that get their collaborators paid, maybe they shouldn’t submit their music for the Grammy Awards — which are voted on by other creators — or even be allowed to. The idea isn’t to penalize anyone, just to create a hard deadline.
None of this would address Osbourne’s issue with West, which I can’t help but take more seriously than the others. Think about it: The No. 1 album in the country this week is by an antisemite who has praised Adolph Hitler and the Nazis and will soon headline a major festival. (In December, West apologized for his comments with a statement in Hebrew but it’s hard to know how seriously to take that, considering that this album has a line about how “I just f—ed a Jewish b—-.”) I think it’s possible to enjoy good art made by bad people, and I assume that most people listening to Vultures 1 don’t agree with the crazy things West has said. At the same time, it feels wrong to write about the copyright issues West faces without acknowledging how hateful he has been. Presumably, West will find ways to license the snippets of music he uses on this album or else replace them. But as he faces pushback from creators and rights holders who are reluctant to be associated with him, as Osbourne is, perhaps he’ll begin a more serious effort to make up for some of the awful things he’s said.
Even after Ozzy Osbourne denied Kanye West‘s sampling request on his new album with Ty Dolla $ign, Vultures 1, elements of the Black Sabbath hit “Iron Man” still appear on the album.
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news
The version of Vultures 1 that West released does not use that sample of Ozzy Osbourne’s solo band performing “Iron Man” at the 1983 Us Festival. Instead, it uses a sample of West’s own track, “Hell of a Life,” released in 2010 with Universal Music Group (UMG), which also includes an interpolation of Black Sabbath’s “Iron Man” guitar riff. This use would likely also require approval from the members of that band — Osbourne, Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler and Bill Ward — all of whom have writing and publishing credits on “Hell of a Life.”
Because “Hell of a Life” includes several samples, there are actually more songwriters on that track than on “Iron Man” alone. They also include swamp rocker Tony White Joe and Sylvester Stewart, better known as Sly Stone. The Stewart song comes from a sample of “She’s My Baby” by The Mojo Men, a band which Stewart played with and wrote for early on in his career. Randall Wixen, founder of Wixen Music Publishing, which represents “She’s My Baby” and controls a 35% stake in the “Hell of a Life” songwriting and publishing, confirms the “Carnival” use was not cleared by his company either.
Trending on Billboard
“It’s ironic that Kanye replaced the unlicensed sample of the Ozzy Osbourne track ‘Iron Man’ with a sample of ‘Hell of a Life,’ which also samples a song by Osbourne and Tony Iommi,” says Wixen. “So, he’s just substituted one unauthorized Ozzy sample for another and now brought our song into the picture. In a perfect world, all samples would be approved and cleared prior to release. It is basic respect for the songwriter.”
It’s not the only unlicensed use of a song or recording on the record, either. A spokesperson for Primary Wave, which has a partnership with James Brown‘s estate, tells Billboard that a use of The Godfather of Soul’s oft-sampled “Funky President (People It’s Bad)” was not cleared for use on the Vultures 1 track “Fuk Sumn.”
It is not unusual for albums to be released with unsettled songwriter splits, often to writers and publishers’ consternation. It’s less common that an album is released without clearing samples or interpolations, though Rell Lafargue, president and COO of Reservoir Media, says it still happens. But the level of West’s popularity — and notoriety — makes album an extreme example.
West’s team is working with the sample clearance company Alien Music Services to license these works and, according to multiple sources, they have so far secured a patchwork of licenses needed. Some works are cleared, others are not and some only partially. For example, Lafargue says Reservoir is currently negotiating the use of a sample of Brand Nubian‘s “Slow Down,” for the album track “Keys to My Life,” but the deal is not done yet. Multiple sources also say they were only approached with licensing requests after Vultures 1 was released last Saturday. Now the album is a serious contender to debut at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart next week.
“On the level of Kanye in 2024 to put out an entire album with samples that haven’t even been requested to be cleared, I don’t think I’ve ever really seen that today,” says Lafargue, who helped release De La Soul’s recording catalog to streaming services last year after it was famously tied up in sample clearance issues. “That’s the exception for sure.”
This has already led to problems for the album. On Wednesday, the song “Good (Don’t Die)” was pulled from Spotify following a copyright infringement claim filed days earlier on behalf of Donna Summer‘s estate, and other streaming services soon followed suit. The estate claimed on a social media post that West’s team had asked for permission to use Summer’s iconic hit “I Feel Love” and had been denied, but the album was released with an interpolation on it anyway.
Separately, on Thursday, the platform used to distribute Vultures 1 to streaming services, FUGA, told Billboard it was removing the album from its systems. However, there was no suggestion that was related to sample or interpolation clearance issues. The album is now being distributed by Label Engine, a service owned by Create Music Group.
Che’ Pope from Yeezy Music says that licensing discussions are “in process” for the album and “everything’s in great shape, except for Ozzy Osbourne and Donna Summer.” He says that the Summer use should never have been released, and that the team is working on the “Carnival” issue now. With “Carnival,” Pope says West just needed a “guitar turnaround” on the track (the use appears around 1:43) and they can “figure out a way to play something else there,” unlike with “Good (Don’t Die)” where the interpolation was more material to the song. “There’s a few of us who play guitar,” Pope adds.
West plans to release Vultures as a trilogy project, and Pope says the licensing issues leading up to this album’s release were a matter of which songs were going to make the cut. “We didn’t know what was actually on the album until it got closer to release date,” he says. “So the thing is we had all the samples from what could potentially be all on any of the three volumes.”
It’s rare that streaming services will pull a major artist’s song over an unlicensed sample or interpolation. More typically, a deal is worked out between the artist’s and creators’ teams to put a license in place, and since the track is already out the artist loses leverage in those negotiations and will often give up a larger share of the rights. This was famously the case with The Verve‘s hit “Bittersweet Symphony,” which was based on a sample from a 1965 version of The Rolling Stones‘ song “The Last Time.” Since the band did not clear the song with The Rolling Stones’ former manager, Allen Klein, who owned the copyrights to their pre-1970 songs, frontman Richard Ashcroft was forced to relinquish all publishing to Klein’s company ABKCO Music and the songwriting credits were changed to The Stones’ Mick Jagger and Keith Richards.
While West built a name for himself as an all-time great hip-hop producer with exquisite use of samples and interpolations, with this release that’s been complicated by his recent history of antisemitism, starting in 2022 and after which he was widely condemned and lost numerous business deals. Speaking with Billboard on Feb. 9, Ozzy Osbourne’s wife and manager Sharon Osbourne noted that Ozzy often allows other artists to sample his work, “but the simple thing is, we don’t want to be associated with a hater.”
Sharon Osbourne, who is daughter of the U.K. music manager Don Arden and was raised Jewish, continued, “To spread hate the way he does, it shouldn’t be allowed. All the excuses — he’s bipolar or whatever — doesn’t change that. It’s like, f— you, basically.”
In all, Vultures 1 has at least two dozen samples and interpolations across 16 tracks, according to the website WhoSampled.com and reviewed by Billboard. Those include several uses of West’s own older music, like with “Hell of a Life” on “Carnival” and his 2012 track “Cold” on “Vultures” — all of which would presumably require licenses with UMG, under which he released those earlier recordings. There are also uses of samples from the film Dogma and a TikTok video of a cheer group and an interview with Mike Tyson from a podcast with Hollywood Unlocked’s Jason Lee, who was formerly West’s head of media and partnerships. And, of course, there is a lot of other creators’ music.
Pope says the licensing process on this album has not been “different from any album” prior, but adds that as West’s first proper release as an independent artist after he no longer benefits from easier clearances within the UMG system. (Aside from West’s own tracks, the UMG record samples include “Back That Azz Up (Back That Thang Up)” by Juvenile, “Bring the Noise” by Public Enemy and “Jubilation” by Pierre Henry and Spooky Tooth, among others.) There are also the image issues. “The landscape, his reality is different,” says Pope. “He’s got an uphill battle in certain areas. Clearing samples is never easy, but this one is more challenging just because of how the landscape on everything is.”
Most record labels and publishers contacted for this story declined to comment, with many saying they do not speak on individual licensing deals and that their policy is to follow their artists’ and songwriters’ wishes in these cases. Not every artist and songwriter involved, however, may know that their work is featured on Vultures 1.
Indie R&B artist Dijon posted to Instagram Stories on Feb. 9, a day before the album’s release, suggesting that he was unaware his song “Good Luck” was being sampled on the track “Stars”. (Now Pope says Dijon “should be good,” though, and the artist’s reps declined to comment.) Wixen and Primary Wave only learned of their creators’ uses on the album until Billboard contacted the companies, and considering the complexity of licensing a sample that contains a sample, it’s easy to imagine that some rights holders still don’t know their work is being used.
Edie Brickell & the New Bohemians, for example, according to the Songview database, have songwriting credits on Brand Nubian’s “Slow Down” because it samples their 1988 hit “What I Am.” Universal Music Publishing Group, which reps the band’s publishing on the song did not respond to request for comment.
The song “Fuk Sumn” also samples late Three 6 Mafia member Koopsta Knicca‘s underground single “Smoking on a J,” which itself samples the Days of Our Lives theme song and Isaac Hayes‘ “Walk From Regio’s” off the 1971 Shaft soundtrack, according to WhoSampled.com and Billboard‘s own review.
West’s own “So Appalled” from 2010 is sampled on the track “Problematic,” but that also includes Manfred Mann on the songwriting credits due to a sample of “You Are – I Am,” according to Songview.
All said, a project like Vultures 1 could require upwards of 50 clearances, says Danny Zook, CEO of Alien Music Services. “We are working diligently to clear all the samples on this project,” he says.