Earlier yesterday, myself and just about every other blog for the most shared this video by Patrick Nazemi regarding Hannah Wants and Boddika. On the (conveniently…so take my word for it) video, he is using the DJay application with both Hannah Wants’ upcoming track, “Found the Ground” and Boddika’s VIP remix of Boddika and Joy Orbison’s “Mercy” queued up.
They sound incredibly similar to the point where I, the person who loathes doing these because I hate negativity and scandal like this, made a post where I systematically went through all the evidence I could to justify whether or not she was quote-unquote guilty. Like I said, she is innocent until proven guilty and no bullying. All I did was speculate based on the evidence I could find through Google. Yesterday, Hannah Wants responded to the allegations on Facebook.
This will be my first and last comment I’ll make on the subject as I pride myself on professionalism and not engaging in negative bullshit but here’s my response to all of the Internet ridiculousness over the past 48 hours to anyone who wishes to hear the truth as opposed to social media madness…
The facts:
Found The Ground was made around 9 months ago and it’s no secret that the inspiration for the track was Joy O & Boddika – Mercy (VIP). I’ve been supporting Mercy (VIP) on radio, in mixtapes and in my DJ sets since it’s release and I went into the studio to create a piece of music that had a similar impact on the dancefloor. It was never intended to insult or offend.
Not one sample of any kind was taken from Mercy (VIP) to create Found The Ground so I’d like to squish the serious and may I add illegal “plagiarism” allegations right here. It is merely bitter controversy and a harder hitting headline for articles.
To anyone saying, writing and reporting that Mercy (VIP) and Found The Ground are “identical”… Wow. Are there similarities? Yes. Are they “identical”? Not at all. I could sit here and list the differences bar by bar, sound by sound but I won’t. Anyone with a set of working ears can pick apart the tracks.
I could (anyone could!) list literally hundreds of tracks over the years that have; sounded a little, fairly or extremely similar to others, been clearly inspired by others, physically sampled small or large parts of other tracks (both with or without consent), again I could go on and on here but I won’t.
Whether you agree or disagree with the any of the above it is subjective to each person but y’know what? It’s music and it’ll never change. Do I humiliate, comment or hate on any of the hundreds of promos I receive each week that have any kind of familiarity to another song? No. I don’t have the time or the will and it’s also not my place to pass judgement on anyone or anything. Let’s put the world and the very real problems into some perspective here? Like really.
On an end note; people love a bandwagon, people love to hate, people enjoy trying to pull others down, people chat shit, people seem to get a mad kick out of saying the worst kinda things about other humans they’ve never even met or even have met yet been nice to their face (I’m not sure which one is worse!?)…
Unfortunately it’s life but I genuinely rest in the knowledge that 99.9% of the time the people who fall into the above categories never seem to be doing better than you and that’s enough ammo for me to keep me motivated, learning lessons and moving forward.Thanks to my supporters you mean the absolute world and thanks to the people both inside and outside of the industry who have hit me up with kind words. After what can only be described as a fairly stressful day or two I’m off to spend some time with my family.
☺ x
If you want to end that there, fine. That is the end of the news part. If you want to read my thoughts regarding this whole situation, by all means, please read. I am just going to comment regarding her statement and do a bit of a (over)critical breakdown.
First off, there is a bit of irony that someone says that they don’t engage in the “negative bullshit,” but she responds to this. Whatever. She has a reputation to maintain and afterall, this is her career and livelihood. As for 48 hours. I really missed something there. I thought I was quick, but I guess people were faster than me. Although, there were those few comments from 9 months ago. I guess it started then. She says differently. I am not going to play he-said-she-said. Although, I don’t see why the date matters when the remix was put out 3 years ago.
There are facts. Her track “Found The Ground” was made 9 months ago. That correlates with the comments first regarding this. This also proves that I hate the music industry for taking so long to release. I bet that is even more frustrating for the artists, but I digress a bit too much. She loves the remix. We all did.
Ok, so she discusses that not one sample was taken from the remix. I believe her. Why shouldn’t I? I don’t have access to her DAW. That said, I am sure that a musician can agree that you can make a track multiple different ways and get a same or almost identical result. From there, she talks about illegal plagiarism. I want to stop right there. All plagiarism is illegal. In what world is plagiarism legal in any form? Whatever. It makes for a better headline for clickbait so I’ll roll with it.
This is where I get frustrated. She states she could list the differences bar by bar, sound by sound, but she won’t. She goes even further to say anyone with a working set of ears can pick it apart. Ok. Well, Dave Dresden of Gabriel & Dresden disagreed that it was an original piece of work.
Also, scrubbing it off the internet disallows anyone with a working set of ears to pick it apart. I literally went through pages upon pages including caches, archives, and international foreign pages and came up with nothing. I’m actually impressed by that.
I found a copy. I am sure this is a copy. Here is the comparison thanks to a YouTube site. Feel free to listen together. Feel free to listen separately. Someone that is an artist, please help me and tell me the difference. People like me who have to go by face value, I would appreciate a lesson on what makes it different. If anything, please prove everyone wrong and educate. I see nothing wrong with this approach.
Original:
Alleged copy:
https://youtu.be/6YJyeSxTsdg
Secondly, I decided to be a keyboard warrior and look up plagiarism. Plagiarism.org states this about it that seems to negate what you said.
Certainly, these media pose situations in which it can be challenging to determine whether or not the copyrights of a work are being violated. For example: Re-mixing or altering copyrighted images, video or audio, even if done so in an original way.
Once again, I am not saying you’re guilty, but I am just breaking down your statement which I found to be off-putting. But, let’s continue. From here, you discuss you can list hundreds of tracks that have been “fairly or extremely similar to others, been clearly inspired by others, physically sampled small or large parts of other tracks (both with or without consent).” I don’t know what this has anything to do with it. Just because others do it doesn’t make it right.
I refuse to use extremist points, but I am sure it wouldn’t be difficult to find many people doing the wrong thing and doing it because others are doing it. It is infact it is proven that it is psychological well-being known as mob mentality, crowd psychology, herd mentality, etc. This doesn’t help your point but tries to defuse the situation by passing the blame off to someone(s) else.
You make a great point here. You shouldn’t humiliate or hate on people’s stuff because it is a waste of time. Although, by taking the time to explain to someone that copying other people’s work will not turn out well, you could save someone else from humiliation or judgement. It is a bit different as yours judgement was in a more public forum which can get overly harsh. I will say that people are really mean and some of the comments were absolutely unnecessary. I honestly feel bad for you even reading that. I apologize for those people even though they mean nothing to either of us.
To end your message, you’re right and you’re wrong about this. You’re focusing on the extreme messages. I understand those stand out the most. Something about the squeakiest wheel gets the recognition. Although, there are a lot of valid points. You as a person seem like a solid person. I don’t know you so I am just speculating from your messages prior to this whole situation.
The victim card in this scenario doesn’t seem correct (outside of the extreme messages). People are accused of plagiarising quite a bit. There is nothing different between your situation and theirs in regards to public response. Like I said, people hate liars. By saying you made something and not actually making something (whether you did or you didn’t) is lying. For the artist that is the true victim, it is stealing – possible plays, fame, etc regardless of how old the song is.
Personally, I would have made that track and everything regarding that disappear. It would never see the light of day. The fact that there is this much negative connotation around it isn’t worth the stress being that you already dealt with quite a bit for 48 hours. There will be more when it releases and starts to spread. I also would have stayed quiet because people like myself tend to be overly critical and now feel more skeptical of the whole scenario.
Honestly, I feel like this is what happens when film scores have temp music and the directors want music almost identical because they hear it so much that they end up getting a “different” song, but it may as well be the temp song because of how similar. It is like the legal amount of changes to make it not plagiarism but it might as well be. Here are a few examples for those who aren’t familiar.
First, the most famous example of temp music vs. final: Fox Searchlight's TITUS (1999) vs. Warner Bros' 300 (2007) pic.twitter.com/lDelJTe9Pw
— Sounds Like Temp (@SoundsLikeTemp) September 12, 2016
Fun comparison: listen to TITUS & 300 played simultaneously, one in the left channel, one in the right channel pic.twitter.com/mUQNS1TCU2
— Sounds Like Temp (@SoundsLikeTemp) September 12, 2016
Small side note. For the example of TITUS and 300, Warner Bros (I believe for the first and only time ever) actually apologize for the plagiarism despite the tracks being “different,” but the same according to how Plagiarism.org defines it.
Warner Bros. Pictures acknowledges and regrets that a number of the music cues for the score of “300” were, without our knowledge or participation, derived from music composed by Academy Award winning composer Elliot Goldenthal for the motion picture “Titus.” Warner Bros. Pictures has great respect for Elliot, our longtime collaborator, and is pleased to have amicably resolved this matter.
https://twitter.com/SoundsLikeTemp/status/775457406620872704
That being said, hopefully we can put this all behind us. Maybe you can explain the differences and settle any questions or concerns. It would be a nice public outreach. The first option I suggested works as well if there is an issue with this way. Either way, I’ll be interested to hear what is next.