Its #IPThursday again good people. This one if fresh off the news shelf, so I thought we’d go through it this week! Its Tracy Chapman v Nicki Minaj.
Question is, can one still sample a song when the owner says “No!!!” multiple times?
Question is, can one still sample a song when the owner says “No!!!” multiple times?
The star of our story today is Tracy Chapman, born March 30 1964, she is one of the most popular artists to come out of the US during the late 80s.
Tracy was raised by her single mother and she always had a passion and talent for music. Although she would perform at shows and coffeehouses, she never seriously pursued it commercially....until the 80s
Throughout her young adult life, Tracy realised that music was a powerful tool for social change. In fact, during her time at University, Tracy was involved in numerous protests againt apartheid in South Africa.
As we all know, every protest requires good music, you know, for morale. She would often sing for the crowds. Yes, Tracy Chapman was a comrade! The comrade in charge of song ✊🏾.
It was during this time that she decided to pursue music commercially. However, it wasn’t easy. During the 80s up tempo pop music was popular, not many people wanted the soft and conscious music which Tracy performed. Maybe only in Jamaica.🤔
She initially struggled to get a record deal, but that changed when a music exec saw her perform, and eventually she got a deal, with Elektra records. She immediately got to work and released her self titled album, “Tracy Chapman” in 1988.
The album had three singles, which I’m sure we all know. If you don’t, where have you been the last 32 years. The first was the woke song “Talkin Bout a Revolution”. Pretty self explanatory isn’t it?
This song became a theme for revolutionary movements worldwide. I think she performed it at many anti-apartheid protests.
The next was the her biggest song to date “Fast Car”. Fast car is still her most successful song. The lyrics are sad, but the song itself is amazing.
However, it was her third single that was to be the subject of controversy. In 1988, Tracy recorded the song “Baby Can I hold You”. The song didn’t peak as high as “Fast Car” but it is still one of her most recognisable tunes.
Over the years, she allowed a few artists to sample her songs, but she also denied a lot of other artists sampling rights. Her reasons were simple, she did not want people to ruin her tracks or use them in a way she didn’t approve.
One of the most popular samples of the song was by reggae singer Shelly Thunder who released “Sorry” in 1997. I mean you can’t object to a reggae cover.
Who can also forget this powerful sample of Baby Can I Hold You, by Further Notice on the Digital Love Riddim in 2012. I don’t know if he got permission, but I’m sure Tracy approved of this banger! It was one of the best songs out of Jamaica.🥵🔥🔥🔥
Funny enough, our other star of today’s story also comes from the Carribean, Trinidad and Tobago to be exact, her name is Onika Tanya Maraj-Petty. But yall know her by her stage name....Nicki Minaj.
Nicki was born on 8 December 1982 and after moving to the US as a child, she has since become of the best female rappers ever.
As artists, Nicki and Tracy could not be any more different, in personality, appearance and in the music they produce. But they can agree on one thing, Tracy’s song “Baby Can I Hold You” is powerful.
In fact, its so powerful that in 2018, when Nicki was working on her album “Queen” when she invited rap legend Nas to feature on a track she was working on. Nicki decided to record the song “Sorry”, which heavily sampled Tracy’s song.
Nicki then tried to release the song as part of her album but it was immediately flagged for Copyright issues. This was on the basis that it sampled Tracy Chapman’s song without prior permission.
So Nicki and her lawyers went to Tracy to try and get permission to release the song. Tracy was not having it, she said No. Nicki then submitted several requests to sample and Tracy still said No, and we can all agree that no means no right....
Desperate to release the song, Nicki went to her fans on Twitter and said that she has a song that she wants to release but its being held up by Tracy Chapman. The hope was probably to shame Tracy and get the Twitter warriors to put pressure...”Fak’ishoulder”
She submitted another sample request, which was denied by Tracy again. So Nicki went back to Twitter, and said “The good sis said No”, which drew a lot of abuse towards Chapman from Nicki stans. The tweets have since been deleted. Wouldn’t matter, Tracy doesn’t have social media.
This is where the story gets messy. 🐸👂🏾☕️. Apparently.... Nicki and her team came up with another idea to get the song to the people, they decided to “leak” it through popular radio DJ Funkmaster Flex.
Artists often leak songs to the public before they are officially released to create a buzz. Its usually not a mistake that leaks happen. The idea behind this, is that the fans will be dying to purchase the song/album if they get a taste of it.
In this case, Nicki and her team were probably hoping it will force Tracy to come to the table, I don’t know for sure 🤷🏾♂️. Tracy Chapman wasn’t having it and she decided to sue Nicki Minaj for Copyright infringement.
Tell your crush this on your next date, maybe they’ll be impressed 😉.....Copyright Infringement is when you copy a substantial part of someone else’s work. And “substantial part” doesn’t always mean a huge chunk of it.
If you copy 5 pages out of a 500 page novel. It can be infringement, as long as those 5 pages are important.
Tracy alleged that Nicki had sampled a substantial part of her song without permission, especially the opening lyrics “Sorry, is all that you can say...”. Which is basically the distinctive part of her song. And then went on to leak it after she said No. Ehy, I’d be upset too.
Nicki’s lawyers argued that this was fair use. If you guys remember from my previous threads, fair use is any copying of IP done for a limited purpose, such as to comment upon, criticize, or parody. Such copying is allowed if its non-profit. Basically, what I’m doing now.😂
Back to our case, Nicki denied sending the song to the DJ Flex and the Flex confirmed this. He said he got it from an anonymous blogger. Which didn’t make sense because Flex had posted on IG before that Nicki sent him “something special”....well it definitively wasn’t UberEats.
So the judge had to consider if this was fair use. Nicki claimed that she had used the song for two purposes: (1) to further artistic experimentation, and (2) to create a track that could be submitted to Tracy so she could to decide whether to grant a license.
I mean, she let Shelly Thunder and Further Notice and others sample it, why wouldn’t she let Nicki?
Tracy argued that the song was made for profit and there was nothing transformative about it. She clearly felt Nicki’s song would ruin hers.
The judge looked at Chapman’s past practices, and she had received and approved licenses for the very same song in the past. Often she just asked to listen to the song first and then granted the license.
The judge said that Nicki’s recording of the song was merely experimentation and would be regarded as “fair use”. The judge said that Nicki recorded the song to show Tracy that her sample was acceptable. Which I believe is true, despite what the media says about Nicki...
She followed the proper channels and asked to sample the song. Its unfortunate that Tracy said No. The judge also said that by not allowing experimentation with her previous work, Tracy would be stifling creativity in music. I personally disagree with this.
The song belongs to Chapman and she has a right to object to any sampling if she feels like it. And if Nicki was sampling for profit, which I think she was, she can object to that.
Safe to say Nicki won this round, but I don’t think this story is over just yet. There may still be issues getting the song released. I couldn’t find it anywhere on the internet, only this low quality extract.
Big Lesson: Nicki followed the right steps and I think when sampling a song, you should always ask for permission. I don’t know where we’re going next with this one. Love and Light Good People! ❤️💛💚
Disclaimer: All this has been reported, I just use my sarcasm to tell it. 🙏🏾✌🏾
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