Timbaland Accussed of Stealing Sample for Furtado Hit!
This is a Daily Hook EXCLUSIVE! Almost. First of all, this is no bullshit.
News is coming across the wire that Timbaland stole the sample for Nelly Furtado’s “Do It.” According to a poster who goes by the tag Okkie on the Something Awful forum Timbaland stole the complete musical line from a Finnish demoscener named Janne Suni, who goes by the tag Tempest. For those of you that are not familiar with the demoscene, its basically an underground group of artists who produce video and music to be placed along with cracktros before pirated and shareware software. According to Okkie,
…in 2000 at Assembly, one of the biggest demoparties in Finland, Tempest competed in the so-called ‘Oldskool Music Compo’, a competition meant for music on old platforms like Amiga, c64, ZX-Spectrum and the likes. His entry ‘Acid Jazzed Evening’, a 4 channel Amiga .MOD won the competition.
Okkie continues,
A c64 musician called grg remade the song on the c64 (using the infamous SID soundchip) which is what Timbaland used for Furtado’s song.
Okkie claims that Suni has no intention on suing Timbaland or Geffen records, but I have a feeling that something might come into fruition in the near future. Okkie has uploaded sample clips of original Tempest track of ‘Acid Jazzed Evening’, the grg remake, and a clip of the Timbaland produced Nelly Furtado track ‘Do It’.
Finally here is a torrent download of a demonstration showing the production process.
This could turn out to be major. Timbaland is a hell of a producer and has major skill, but it is unfortunate if this turns out to be true.
Edit: Several people posted comments regarding my somewhat vague definition of the demo scene. I did not mean to suggest that the demo scene and piracy/cracking go hand in hand. They do not. The demo scene does have roots in cracking, but now a days there is a huge demo scene that no longer has any association to piracy. I also have no problem saying that I USE TO be an active scener (and not the demo scene) so trust me in that it was just bad journalism. Please refer to the comments for further clarification.
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January 13th, 2007 at 1:40 pm
why is everyone gettin so worked up? it’s called sampling, and this is in no way unfortunate. 50% of tim’s stuff is sampled and 90% of hip-hop is sampled, it’s creative, kinda like picking up where the original left off.
January 13th, 2007 at 6:26 pm
“For those of you that are not familiar with the demoscene, its basically an underground group of artists who produce video and music to be placed along with cracktros before pirated and shareware software.”
Correction – it used to be like that in the 80’s. Nowadays “video and music” produced in the demoscene is a standalone piece of art, free from any sort of illegal activity. You can see quite some examples at http://www.pouet.net
January 13th, 2007 at 7:13 pm
Ordinarilly I wouldn’t care, but – since there’s a possibility that someone may pick up the ‘crack’ portion of the description and assume “oh, this is an illegal activity!” – a bit of clarification.
The modern demoscene has some roots in the “cracktro” area – but the activity is 99 44/100ths unrelated. Your standard demoscener makes music/animations/pixelized graphics/realtime movies for FUN, not ‘to place in front of a cracked game.’
The ONLY reason I bring this up is to prevent someone from coming along and assuming that Tempest is ‘getting what he deserves’ because “he is just a criminal, ripping off other people’s work.” That’s not the case, at all. The modern demoscene has as much to do with cracking as Hong Kong, the city, does. Yes, you can find crackers in both. But being a citizen of Hong Kong does NOT make you a criminal, and neither does being a demoscener.
Ok, distinction possibly unblurred, possibly made worse, if nothing else, probably gave someone the impression demosceners are a bunch of anal twatters who can’t handle someone making a simple mistake about their history. (Again, I’d let it go, but the whole “ZOMG PIRATE GETS WHAT HE DESERVES LOLLERCOPTERZ HEY FRIEND ME” thing is screaming for smackage.
January 14th, 2007 at 2:00 am
To the first comment, you are correct, 90% of hip-hop is sampled. Sampling is in fact an art, Timbaland is an artist. I don’t believe this is what is being questioned. However, a well sampled song is usually composed of samples from several records whereas in this case the whole musical line (I believe 16 bars) is sampled. It is not broken up. It is not a simple bass sample. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think this is what the major dilemma is at this point.
January 14th, 2007 at 6:55 am
90% of hiphop may be sampled, but usually if they sample something that can be recognized, they pay for the rights to use the sample. Even then, they don’t usually build the whole song around borrowed melody and chord progression.
Another thing… There has always been a separate demoscene and cracker scene. In the early 90’s there might have been a very large overlap between those, but even then I remember that some demo coders, musicians and GFX artists despised the cracker scene.
Today, it seems to me that the demoscene and the cracker scene are quite separated. I haven’t been observing it as closely since late 90’s though.
And one more thing… Even if timbaland never sampled the original, he still used the same chord progression and melody. If they where some kind of typical things (like 12 bar blues or some typical 3 or four chord pop thing) it would not be that big deal. However… That chord progression uses six different chords (and some of those are somewhat atypical in themselves) and a very easily recognizeable melody. Both of those match 100% in those songs.
January 14th, 2007 at 6:25 pm
Video that explains it a bit easier than downloading the example-torrent:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4KX7SkDe4Q
and
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wV2fTEeP6GM
Enjoy.
January 15th, 2007 at 11:39 am
heheheh You know, I wonder how many of us involved with BBS’s in the 80’s did not have some attachment to the (old school, pie rat) scene. I used to traffic myself. I have definite opinions on the issue these days, and often chastise my friends who rip XBox games and what-not.
My view is that piracy did not kill the C64 et al back then, Commodore itself had a better hand in that. In fact, there are a lot of games I played that I could not just pick up at my local shop. (Giana Sisters was great!)
Things are a bit different these days. I do not believe that piracy will kill any well-established industry, and I do not believe that the industry really things so, either. In a lot of cases, like back in the day when we had swap parties and traded tapes of music at the skating rink, piracy helps exposure. Even so, ripping XBox and PS2 games, and copying CDs take away from the compensation of the artist, board runners, producers, and the poor troll stuck getting these guys coffee, coke, and hookers.
And that is where it all falls: the unquestionable talent of those who truly create. Think about Tempest and GRG — lowly, unsigned, talented trackers unknown in mainstream popularity. How many people dream of the “accidental discovery.” I know as a hobbyist actor I kind-of hope that one day someone will see me and say “Hey! I want that guy in my movie!” (I will even settle for a commercial!) So Tempest creates a piece of original track work, and maybe one day someone like Timbaland comes along as says “Yo, dawg, yo shit is tight! I wanna take this to the top with some phat beats and vocals. What you say?”
Instead, he just flat-out steals it. He did not even bother to kiss them or leave a couple of bucks on the dresser. How is that for the “American Dream”? Used to be we earned our way and gave credit where credit is due. Now we just steal it: every man for himself.
Sheesh.
January 15th, 2007 at 10:00 pm
ANd here’s the zlideshow…
http://timbalandtempest.ytmnd.com/