Well it’s about time. Anjunabeats, the record label that released and holds the rights to Arty & Mat Zo‘s masterpiece “Rebound”, released a statement today in regards to the Will.i.Am song “Let’s Go” featuring Chris Brown. Over the past couple weeks there has been a swirl around “Let’s Go” because it features a large portion of “Rebound”, which was sampled without the permission of Anjunabeats. Supporters of Arty, Mat Zo, and original music have slammed Will.i.Am and Chris Brown via social media, although Chris Brown was only featured as a vocalist and not a producer on the track.
Here’s the statement by Anjunabeats, from their Facebook page:
Anjunabeats is the record label behind Arty and Mat Zo and owns the master recording rights to their collaboration “Rebound.” Mat Zo and Arty have been important members of the Anjunabeats family for a number of years and “Rebound” was one of the label’s most popular releases in 2011.
As has been widely reported, a large section of “Rebound” was sampled on Will.i.am’s track “Let’s Go featuring Chris Brown” and this took place without the permission of Anjunabeats or Arty & Mat Zo.
Although Arty (but not Mat Zo) was credited in the sleeve notes, this is not the same as obtaining permission. To present someone else’s work as your own, you need to seek permission, agree terms and file paperwork, which has not happened in this case.
We’ve remained silent on this issue until now but as a record label it is our obligation to protect our artists’ interests and we felt it was necessary to respond to some of the inaccuracies that have been reported following Will.i.am’s recent comments to Associated Press.
Personally speaking, the tiny amount of respect I had for Will.i.Am (mostly for his early Hip Hop work with the Black Eyed Peas, before they became a Pop group) is pretty much gone. At least when guys like Pitbull use dance music samples, more often than not the original artists are credited (TJR on “Don’t Stop the Party”). I’m curious to see how the dust settles with this one, but the whole thing is pretty outrageous.