Scott Storch and Timbaland Beef

[doinitrealbig]

From DOINITREALBIG.com

In what seems like the first time two super producers have put their beef on wax, Scott Storch, the white man who blesses rappers with beats, and Timbaland, the black man who makes white people sound hip made their beef official with two recently released tracks.

Timbaland started the beef by jabbing on his track Give It To Me from his upcoming album Shock Value dropping March 27:

when timbo is in the party everbody put up their hands/ I get a half a mill for my beats you get a couple grand-d-d-d-d…/ I’m a real producer and you just the piano man/ your song gonna top the charts, I heard em, I’m not a fan-n-n-n-n…

Apparently this was enough for Scott Storch to stop taking corny looking pictures with over-sized sun glasses and pick up a mic. In response on track called Built Like That, the piano man Scott Storch gets some stuff of his chest and really airs it out. He accuses Timbaland of beat jacking, taking steroids, and of Jimmy Iovine fronting him Nelly Furtado so he could get his money back. Whether these allegations are true or not, one hilarious lyric is undeniable:

what you try to lose weight try to get some respect/ still aint lost that pack of franks on the back of your neck

Scott Storch - Built Like That (Timbaland Diss)

Timbaland - Give It To Me

[Selegna]

what you try to lose weight try to get some respect/ still aint lost that pack of franks on the back of your neck

HAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!

[Ryan]

Zing!12345

[onemancult]

Timbaland is a beat-jacker times ten.

[thelion1856]

what beat did he jack?

[artificialsky]

plz ban thx.

[onemancult]

Timbaland got in trouble recently for jacking an entire melody and beat pattern from a small-time Finnish chiptune musician.

Timbaland was suspected to have jacked the melody and lyrics for JT's My Love from a British garage artist.

About a decade ago, Timbaland and Missy Elliot specifically were going through a lot of issues as far as coming up with material for her second album. At the time, electro-punk group Mindless Self Indulgence had just been signed to the same label, and their self-released demo was in heavy rotation. MSI have a really, really unique style- a lot of crazy vocal tics layered into the mix, frenetic beats, etc. Timbaland proceeded to abandon a lot of the work he'd done on Missy's album and started pounding out new tracks that were, for the most part, based on the MSI template: weird tempos, extra vocal ad-libs layered into the songs, and so on. MSI got dropped from the label after one release, and Timbaland went on to have a career based almost entirely on stealing inspiration from other artists.

[doctorgnar]

Timbaland got in trouble recently for jacking an entire melody and beat pattern from a small-time Finnish chiptune musician.

Timbaland was suspected to have jacked the melody and lyrics for JT's My Love from a British garage artist.

About a decade ago, Timbaland and Missy Elliot specifically were going through a lot of issues as far as coming up with material for her second album. At the time, electro-punk group Mindless Self Indulgence had just been signed to the same label, and their self-released demo was in heavy rotation. MSI have a really, really unique style- a lot of crazy vocal tics layered into the mix, frenetic beats, etc. Timbaland proceeded to abandon a lot of the work he'd done on Missy's album and started pounding out new tracks that were, for the most part, based on the MSI template: weird tempos, extra vocal ad-libs layered into the songs, and so on. MSI got dropped from the label after one release, and Timbaland went on to have a career based almost entirely on stealing inspiration from other artists.

Just for the sake of counterpoint here - not because I want to battle you, or to defend Timba - but isn't "stealing inspiration from other artists" what all muscians do? I mean, there are no original ideas, right? A lot of rap music is based on melodies and rhythms from other genres.

[sidneylo]

[sidneylo]

[onemancult]

Right, but usually that is done under the auspices of having secured the right to sample an artist.

Or, other than that, at least recognizing that your work is based on samples of another artist's work, regardless of whether or not you've acquired a license.

What Timbaland did in the first case was copy the melody and beat pattern exactly from another atist, use his own drum sound and a different instrument, and pass it off as his own. When asked about it several times on different radio shows and whatnot, his response is always something to the effect of " It is videogame music- I took videogame music, so what?" Basically, admitting that he stole someone else's work and passed it off as his own.

The 'My Love' incident involves actual use of lyrics from another song without license or credit, which is a bit easier to peg than stealing a musical element. And, in that instance, Timbaland has been silent, refusing to talk about it when asked.

The thing ten years ago, that is something that was actually covered a fair amount in a lot of alternative rock and punk publications that I remember reading about, but nothing much ever came out of it, because poor punk rockers don't have the money and/or power to take on a big-name producer and his record label.

A couple of lawsuits are pending against Timbaland, filed by the Finnish musician and the British singer- it is interesting to watch how this unfolds. This isn't your usual sampling issue- it is full-on plagiarism in both cases.

EDIT: Thanks for that Sid.

This kind of sickens the fuck out me, being a musician.

[wEstSidE]

bruh, it's so easy. just put the stuff after "v=" inside the tags man.

also i like scott storch because he's scr8 capitalist with his beats...whoever's got the cash can get them.

[doctorgnar]

Wow.

Timab owes somebody some money.

I remember seeing something about this now, in some interview he was basically like, "Yeah sometimes you find something and you don't know what's public domain or not."

JACKER.

[onemancult]

He's been trying to play the ignorance excuse for a while now, but that won't stand up in court at all.

The guy in Finland is trying to get the US-based Electronic Freedom Foundation to take up the case, and from what I last read, they're interested in doing so.

For whatever reasons, I'd really like to see Timbaland get taken down a couple of pegs.

Financially and ego-wise.

[ghostdeini]

so pharrell is still cool, right?

[macuser3of5]

so pharrell is still cool, right?

Hell Hath No Fury paid for all his solo sins.

[wEstSidE]

hell hath no fury was burtally nice...completely slept on though.

WAMP WAMP

[ghostdeini]

what it do, what it do

[thelion1856]

timbaland just wants to make songs you can dance to! someone send him some samples and beats you made so he can make a mill off your work.

[jl3969]

so you guys are discrediting everything timbaland has done?

he has still produced some of the best singles on pop radio in the past 10 years.

as for my love, didn't justin timberlake write the melodies and lyrics?

[Kasper]

so you guys are discrediting everything timbaland has done?

he has still produced some of the best singles on pop radio in the past 10 years.

as for my love, didn't justin timberlake write the melodies and lyrics?

so i should respect britney because she'd had tons of #1 hits???

[sidneylo]

so you guys are discrediting everything timbaland has done?

No. We are calling him out for the fucking thief he is. He makes me dance like a white boy, but it doesn't change the fact that he's a cocky son of a bitch who should be knocked a few notches off his pedastal for this blatant and dispicable behavior.

[mellowfellow]

Timbaland is a great producer. No one is gonna discredit that he is talented. I''m always interested in whatever he puts out. Sampling is common in most of hip hop music and I guess when producers sample other obscure artists without permission, they get in trouble.

dj shadow, rjd2, and kayne west all sample music but they are great in making the songs into their own.

about britney spear. You dont have to respect her but you can enjoy pop music. I especially liked "I''m a slave 4 you" produced by the neptunes. The track was damn catchy.

[onemancult]

Timbo co-wrote 'My Love'... lolz! u mean that major label recording artist dudn't write his own songz? wacked!

For that matter, Timbajack co-wrote the bulk of material on Timberlake's and Furtado's albums. So, not only does he get a ton of money as a producer, but he gets royalties as songwriter. Why's that important? Because his net gains are practically doubled based on a few bits and pieces of work that aren't his at all.

I'm not discrediting every single thing he's done either, alls I'm saying is that the dude needs a reality check. He's not above the law, and as a musician I'd like to know that there are working systems in place to protect small guys like me from big guys like that.

[onemancult]

Sampling is common in most of hip hop music and I guess when producers sample other obscure artists without permission, they get in trouble.

dj shadow, rjd2, and kayne west all sample music but they are great in making the songs into their own.

all very true, but let's be clear here that timbaland didn't sample the original artist, he

completely lifted their work and used it as his own. sampling involves using a snippet of sound from the original material, timbaland studied the original material and recreated it himself note for note, drum hit for drum hit.

legally, he should have first contacted the original artist for permission. further than that, he should have been keeping accurate record of having used someone else's work, even if he was producing in his home studio. there is an industry standard holding that producers working in a third-party studio paid for by a record label's money have to, at the end of their time in the studio, fill in a time sheet that includes a section for noting the use of copyrighted material so that the record label can follow up on getting clearance for that material so that they don't get sued.

[Kasper]

i'm gonna add a little to what onemancult said. there is a HUGE difference between sampling and beat jacking, they seriously have nothing to do with each other. best example, DJ shadow can use tens of samples JUST to make a drumbeat on one of his track. there this Endtroducing collection of sample that he used for the album around on the net (probably easy to find, i'm too lazy to search) and you would listen to some of the original track and wouldn't believe what Shadow has been able to do with them. and i know pretty much all hip-hop producer have been guilty of not clearing tracks that they thought came from artists too underground nobody would notice (i remember reading a great interview with Babu about this a while ago), but taking a whole song and making it your own without any mention of the original artist is just wack.

[HisPiffness]

Personally, I think that some people are operating under the assumption that Timbo is guilty until proven innocent. As a disclaimer, the issue with the Finnish musician seems pretty cut and dry - it appears as if he stole that song, period. However, just because a musician is being sued doesn't necessarily mean that he is a plagiarist. Producers like Timbo get sued all the time by people who are looking to make a quick buck. Just because someone is having a lawsuit brought against them doesn't necessarily mean that they are guilty.

As for the sampling issue, it's not necessarily about how much of a song is sampled. Sampling is like writing a paper and quoting something else - you just need to give credit where it is due. For example, then-Puff Daddy's "I'll Be Missing You" is The Police's "Every Breath You Take" with different drums. However, Diddy paid out the ass for rights to that song, which made everything kosher.

[onemancult]

Tiimbo isn't even guilty until proven innocent in this case because he's asserted in interviews that yeah, he did jack that song, and that he doesn't care that he did so because, and I quote, "It's just like some video game music or something."

... even if it were just video game music, there are fucking laws in place to protect people's intellectual property, and Timbaland doesn't deserve any exceptions. Have you heard the original song, the Nelly Furtado song, and the Timbaland ringtone side by side? Not only did he jack the exact same beat battern, bass lines, and melodies, but he barely bothered to change anything about them to cover his ass. Just because the songs are nearly exactly the same doesn't mean he's guilty? Anyone who has ears would condemn the dude.

And, sampling is not just like writing a paper. Besides the fact that quoting something for academic work falls under fair use, there's also the issue of publishing and songwriting licenses which are granted to the publishers and songwriters of a particular piece of music. You don't just need to give credit where credit is due when you sample, you need to pay money to the license-holders- it is their property, and you legally have to pay to use it, or they are completely within their rights to sue you, and there is no way to magically beat copyright law. Yes, we can go through a whole laundry list about uncleared samples, but the fact remains that unless you want to run the risk of dealing with a lawsuit, you try to the best of your abilities to clear your samples.

And, it does matter how much of a song is sampled- the more you sample from a work, the more costly your rights are going to be. Sampling a kick drum costs way less than Diddy sampling the entirety of "Every Breath You Take" and laying a different drum beat under it.

[wEstSidE]

you know what..."lazy jones" was just some video game music once upon a time.

shit's been sampled nearly as much as "funky drummer" now.

[NESK]

OMC - you know the ledge, holmes. i never knew about time sheets and shit like that. thats a cool tidbit of knowledge. you probly make beats huh? now im trying to download that mindless self indulgence album. you know the title? or if you got it on your computer and feel like hookin a ninja up, get at me.