R&B crooner/rhymer Torey Lanez sued for an unauthorized sample of George Michael’s iconic hit, Careless Whisper.
The ’80s Tory Lanez, They Want Their Hits Back
Michael’s estate and his co-writer Andrew Ridgeley, claim Lanez’s request to use a sample of their song was denied in June 2021. Lanez borrowed from the song for his “Enchanted Waterfalls” track on the 80s infused album, Alone at Prom. Previously, Madonna accused Lanez of plagiarizing her 1985 billboard hit, “Into the Groove”. Lanez allegedly sampled Madonna for the same 2021 album.
The Estate Issues An Official Response
Lanez nor his publicity team has issued an official response to the current allegations. However, the song is noticeably absent from the artist’s website and taken from Spotify earlier this year. Still, the track can be streamed on Apple Music and YouTube at this time.
In 2019, Tory released a 2000s themed album, which continued the mixtape series, Chixtape 5. The album made news because of its notable features of fan favorites such as Ashanti and Jagged Edge. It also made business headlines as samples were being cleared seemingly up to the minute of the release. Sascha Stone Guttfreund, a member of Lanez’s legal team said, “We cleared 17 samples, there was a total of 19 different lawyers we had to clear things through. Ironically, the artists that performed did not get paid feature fees.”
She added that there were some obvious expenses associated with clearances, but no direct feature fee.
“I have to say thank you to Todd Douglas and Todd Johnson at Interscope, who we worked with, and we called many, many times per day. There were also 29 songwriters, not including the sample writers,” she explained.
Tory Called Copy Cat Before
Fellow Canadian producer Boi-1da called him out on poorly mimicking dancehall culture in 2016. The same year Drake dropped a not-so-subtle snub saying, “all the boys in the New Toronto want to be me a little.” Singer and songwriter Eric Bellinger has also called Tory out for using his adlibs and general ‘swagger jacking’. In a 2018 diss track directed at Tory Lanez he said, your only talent mimicking other people’s talent.”
Check out the videos below to compare them both.
Sampling has been a theme in Hip Hop since its inception. Yet, legally and creatively Tory may have crossed the thin line between inspired and intercepted.
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Written by J J Braden
IG: @thebookmd
