Saturday, October 27, 2007

Sample/Example: Herbie Mann, The Beatnuts & J.Lo

Intellectual Property Theft
By: DJ Raida


I hate Jennifer Lopez.

There! I said it.

Besides her image as a bitch and a diva, the real reason I feel this way is due to her shifty deals when it comes to music. In 1999, The Beatnuts released their amazing album, "A Musical Massacre", with their hit single, "Watch Out Now." [Watch the music video here]

This allowed The Beatnuts moderate commercial success, and an expanded fan base. 2001 rolls along and Jennifer Lopez releases her album with the track, "Jenny from the Block". When I first heard the song, I was young and naive, and thought, “Hey, that’s the same track as The Beatnuts, they must be getting some royalties for sure”. Little did I know that behind the scenes, J.Lo was getting cake, whilst the 'nuts were getting completely screwed. Naturally, The Beatnuts were bitter about the track, they received no warning of its occurrence, only hearing it when it was played on the radio. The track's producer was keen on giving credit to The Beatnuts, and giving them some money for the beat's idea, but higher powers in the recording world felt they didn’t have enough money already.

The situation was boiling for a minute, with disses going both ways. On the track, 'Confused Rappers', JuJU raps: "You know you haven't been to the block for a minute/ Getting all the little Latin girls to bite/ When you really can't sing and you're no Salma Hayek/." J.Lo was even at one point going to release a diss record on her official album directed at The Beatnuts, with help from Nina Sky. Now seriously, J.Lo and Nina Sky on a diss track? What can they possibly come up with that would have hurt The Beatnus?

Fortunately for all of us (unless you like to laugh), the track never surfaced; so at least J.Lo isn’t so stupid. But just the thought of it is fairly ridiculous! Now not only does she steal the idea for the song from The 'nuts, the actual song is horrible! J.Lo remembers where she came from? Bitch PLEASE! She attended a private school! She's such a diva, she ain't fooling anyone with this gimmicky track.

On a song made for the mixtape Blazin 4 compiled by Nino Brown (released only in Australia, of which I own but can’t find the CD), The Beatnuts joke about being over the money they are owed, and just want a piece of J.Lo (as much as I hate her, I gotta say she’s fairly fine).

The original track which is sampled in both songs is Herbie Mann’s “Hi-Jack”. It’s a discotheque track with an eclectic flute for its main melody, a salsa/soul rhythm and the obligatory background singers. The whole situation comes down to whether you believe the composers of “Jenny from the Block” used the sample of “Hi-Jack”, without influence of “Watch Out Now” to make an original song. I personally think (and so do The Beatnuts) that without “Watch Out Now”, “Jenny from the Block” would never have been made, at least not with the same beat.

What do you guys think?
Here are the tracks in question:

Sample:
'Hi-Jack' by Herbie Mann


Example:
'Watch Out Now' by The Beatnuts


Example:
'Jenny from the Block' by J.Lo a.k.a. Jennifer Lopez
Here's the remix with Jadakiss & Styles P: