Author Archives: illtal

Beastie Boys sued for Copyright Infringement

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The fear of any sample-based producer is the dreaded “copyright infringement” lawsuit. With the passing of Beastie Boys member Adam “MCA” Yauch, albums sales for the group have shot up this week. In comes in Tuff City claiming The Beastie Boys used portions of several Trouble Funk songs without seeking clearance or paying for rights.

The reality is, the claim is probably accurate. However, the issue comes in, in that the Beastie Boys songs that sampled Trouble Funk were created prior (1986-1989) to laws making the lawsuit a fairly easy win.

The Huffington Post has a great article outlining the specifics of the lawsuit. Not mentioned in the article is some background on Tuff City. By way of a tweet by Davy D, I saw Roy C’s website which states the following:

Any Person or Company that has been SUED by Aaron Fuchs / Tuff AMERICA/ Tuff Tunes/ Tuff City/ Tuff “N” Rumble please contact Roy C (803) 584-3704 or email carolinarecords@aol.com

BMI removed songs from my catalog based on fraudulent contracts presented by Aaron Fuchs. 100% of my publishing money is being collected by Swing Beats Music BMI / Aaron Fuchs. Not one dime of this money has been paid to me.

For those who don’t know, Roy C. is one of the people behind the classic break “Impeach the President” by the Honey Drippers. The rights to the song were allegedly purchased by Tuff City at one point.

In the Studio with Chawky White

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Chawky White in the Studio

On May 5th, I hit the studio with Chawky White again. We’re currently working on our new album, tentatively titled “The Manhatten Project“. We met up for an early (10:00am) Cinco De Mayo session at R & J Recording Studios in Perth Amboy, NJ.

We did two tracks – “Uptown” and “Upper East Side”. These will most likely be performed at our upcoming New York City show at Webster Hall at the end of May (details coming soon).

On a side note, I wanted to let everyone know how much of a trooper Chawky is, as he’s still recovering from his polar bear attack. You can read about it here – Rapper Chawky White Survives Polar Bear Attack.

Milk – Spam (featuring Ad Rock)

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Hip-Hop lost an icon earlier this week – Adam “MCA” Yauch of the Beastie Boys. The Beastie Boys are responsible for giving Def Jam commercial success, merging Hip-Hop and Rock, and giving a lane to white rappers. The face of hip-hop would not appear as it does today without this legendary group.

To pay tribute, I decided to post up a slightly rare Beastie Boy-related cut by artist Milk. Milk is actually MC Milk D from Audio Two of “Top Billin’” fame. Milk tried to make a comeback in the early 90′s and dropped an EP titled “Never Dated“. Milk’s voice didn’t carry over well to the 90′s and most of the LP does sound ironically – dated.

The track “Spam” features Beastie Boys member Ad Rock. Unfortunately, the song does not feature the late/great MCA.

For the bonus trivia point, Milk is actually MC Lyte’s brother. If you listen to their voices and rhyme styles you can definitely tell they are related.

Fat Joe – That White

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I don’t have much info about the group The Eleventh Hour. They have an album “Greatest Hits” which is slightly misleading, being that I’ve never seen any other albums by them. There are some interesting facts about the album however. For one, all songs on the album were written by Bob Crewe, who is famous for writing several of Frankie Valli and the 4 Seasons hits. Second, the horns on the album were arranged by Tom Scott. Finally, there is a version of “Lady Marmalade” (written by Bob Crewe) on this album. The most interesting part here is that this version was released the same year (1974) as the hit version by Labelle. It’s possible this version was released first.

The track “Nasty” was sampled by DJ Premier for the Fat Joe cut “That White“. Once again, DJ Premier chops an otherwise boring intro and makes a crazy beat out of it. Check it out.

Gospel Drum Break

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Nobody but Jesus can inspire a dope drum break like this. Shirely Caesar was a gospel/soul/r&b artist on United Artists records. Despite her sexual pose and big afro on the album cover, this LP is pretty much a snoozer. Most of the tracks are traditional soul-like gospel music. The track “Nobody but Jesus” has a long drum break in the intro, ripe for the sampling. Check it out.

There is also a cover of a Stevie Wonder cut “Jesus Children of America” but it has the same sound as the rest of the album.

Juice Crew All-Star

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I debated for a while if I would post this story up at the risk of potentially burning a bridge or pissing someone off, but nothing in here is dergatory or fabricated so here it goes…

In the summer of 2009, I kind of hit a road block in terms of putting songs out. The ILLZ was living in Miami and I wasn’t working with anyone else. In order to put something out, I decided to scour Twitter and look for artists willing to record verses/songs in exchange for money. Kool G Rap was out of my price range and everyone else I was finding wasn’t relevant enough to justify paying for. Then, I finally found Craig G of the Juice Crew.

Craig G would constantly promote the fact that he would record songs for money, either as features for other artists or to rap on producer’s beats. I reached out to him and we negotiated a price for 2 songs. He asked for any intros/outros or things I wanted him to say. Other than a shot out to me, I pretty much let him rock with whatever he wanted.

After the negotiation took place, I started to feel less than satisfied with the whole situation. First, he would only accept Western Union as a form of payment, no paypal. My issue with that is, it costs like $25.00 on top of what I was already paying to send money via Western Union. That aside, he did provide the accapellas rather quickly after payment was received. However, there was an issue with those as well. He openly stated that he would only provide MP3′s of the audio, not wave/aiff format. Not to start a huge debate on sound quality, but I feel it’s standard business practice to send the highest quality possible.

I paid to have the songs mixed and began to promote the songs. I did a quick search on Youtube and found a few other songs by Craig G that people had paid for. I listened to one, and to my surprise, it was the exact verse Craig G had used on my song. I reached out to the guy who posted it (some producer from Europe) to let him know. I also reached out to Craig G and asked him what the deal was. He said that he recorded a rough mix and sent it to the producer, but the guy never paid him for the accapellas. Instead, the guy put out the rough mix. Craig G apologized for the mix up and told me he would record a new verse for me.

At the same time, I had few mix show DJ’s willing to promote the song for me and they requested “drops”. I asked Craig G while if recording the new verse, could he also record the drops for the DJ’s. He said he would. As time went by, I kept following up with him for the new verse/drops but kept getting the run around. I explained that I’m really trying to promote the song, not just sit on it. He eventually stopped responding and I stopped reaching out. I never received the new verse or the drops.

I’ll close this story with this… I still respect Craig G’s music and his legacy as a Juice Crew Member and battle rapper. He technically did deliver on what was originally agreed on. Not sure if the same verse issue was true or not, but it doesn’t really matter at this point. I learned a valuable lesson and have since then been much more aware on my business dealings. The reason I wrote this story is not to throw dirt on anyone’s name, but rather a lot of people ask me “How did you end up working with Craig G?”. Well, there it is.