There’s a fine line between sampling a song and outright stealing it and Kanye West has been accused of crossing that line.
Electronic artist Aphex Twin recently divulged during an interview with Pitchfork that he had a run in of sorts with the “Black Skinhead” rapper over an uncredited sample on his My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy album.
Aphex Twin says his song “Avril 14th” was “badly sampled” by West on his Amber Rose break up song “Blame Game” and that West essentially tried to get around giving credit for using the song:
I know that he tried to f—–g rip me off and claim that he’d written it, and they tried to get away with not paying. I was really helpful, and when they first sent it to me, I was like, ‘Oh, I can re-do that for you, if you like,’ because they’d sampled it really badly and time-stretched it and there was loads of artifacts. I was like, ‘I’ll just replay it for you at that speed if you want.’ And they totally didn’t even say ‘hello’ or ‘thanks,’ they just replied with, ‘It’s not yours, it’s ours, and we’re not even asking you any more.’
The sample was eventually replayed with renowned producer and frequent Kanye collaborator Mike Dean being credited for playing piano.
