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Kelis accused Beyoncé and songwriters/producers Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo of “stealing” Thursday afternoon after discovering a track from Beyoncé’s highly anticipated new album, “Renaissance,” released overnight, contains an interpolation of the single d Kelis’ hit “Milkshake”.
An Instagram fan page pointed out the use earlier this week. On Thursday, Kelis commented on a post saying she hadn’t been contacted about Beyoncé’s track before its release. He noted the “level of disrespect and total ignorance of all 3 parties involved” – a clear reference to Beyoncé, Williams and Hugo – and expanded on his frustration in a pair of videos later posted on his personal page Instagram.
“It’s not a collaboration,” he said. “It is called theft because the definition of collaboration means that we are working together. You can’t work together if you don’t check in to see if everything is okay.”
Representatives for Beyoncé and Williams did not respond to The Washington Post’s requests for comment.
Here’s a look at one of the most high-profile copyright cases of the last decade, and how experts tell the difference between infringement and inspiration. (Video: Daron Taylor, Sarah Hashemi/The Washington Post)
According to Joe Bennett, a forensic musicologist and professor at Berklee College of Music, there are two main copyrights in music: the musical work in terms of writing and publishing songs; and sound recording, often called masters. A common industry model, called for in recent years by Taylor Swift, is for the record label to own the masters and composers of the musical work.
Neither Beyoncé, Williams nor Hugo had a legal obligation to contact Kelis before drawing “Milkshake,” Bennett said, since Williams and Hugo, who produced the 2003 single as the Neptunes, were also the only songwriters involved. they figured They received writing credits on Beyoncé’s song “Energy,” and the full credits note that the song contains an interpolation of Kelis’ “Milkshake.” (The interpolation means that “Energy” does not contain the actual audio of “Milkshake”, but an interpretation of it.)
“Legally,” Bennett said, “this case is open and shut.”
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But for Kelis, who received a Grammy nomination for Best Urban/Alternative Performance for “Milkshake,” it came down to “common decency.” In her second Instagram video, she said her anger “wasn’t really at Beyoncé” but was directed at what she saw as “a lot of hypocrisy.” Williams has spoken publicly about how artists should own their own music or be empowered to rework arrangements, he said. But early in his career, he struck a deal with Williams and Hugo that he now considers unfair.
Kelis met the Neptunes through a mutual friend when she was 19, and they hit it off creatively. Speaking to The Guardian two years ago about her early music, Kelis recalled that she was “told we’d split the whole 33/33/33, which we didn’t”. She said she was blatantly lied to and cheated and made no money from the sales of her first two albums, both produced by Neptunes.
“Their argument is, ‘Well, you signed it.’ I say, ‘Yes, I signed what they told me, and I was too young and too stupid to check,'” Kelis told the Guardian.
In the second Instagram video, Kelis reiterated that she knows “what I have and what I don’t have.”
“I also know the lies that were told,” he continued. “I also know the things that were stolen. They stole the edition, cheated people without rights. It happens all the time, especially then. So it’s not about being crazy about Beyoncé.”
Beyoncé announced that “Renaissance,” her seventh solo studio album, will be the first of a “three-act project.” The album launch has so far been more traditional than you might expect from Beyoncé, who has become known for her meticulously planned surprises; sparked its release with the explosive single “Break My Soul,” which features a sample of Robin S’s song “Show Me Love.”
“Show Me Love” is credited to Allen George and Fred McFarlane, who, similar to the situation with Williams and Hugo, received writing credits on Beyoncé’s track. And like Kelis, Robin S didn’t know her work had been featured until she heard “Break My Soul.” But he was satisfied with the use, telling Ebony magazine that Beyoncé is “part of my legacy and now I’m part of her legacy.”