Nicki Minaj Is Getting Sued For Sampling Tracy Chapman’s Song Without Permission
Remember when Nicki Minaj was thinking of changing the release date of her album because she didn’t have permission to use a sample on one of her songs. Nicki didn’t end up pushing her release date, because she didn’t include the song on her album since she didn’t get permission to use the sample. That didn’t stop it from ending up on the internet somehow and now the artist whose song was sampled, Tracy Chapman, is coming to collect in the form of lawsuit money, honey.
TMZ reports that Tracy Chapman is saying Nicki fully stole her song “Baby Can I Hold You” and she is ready to make the self-proclaimed Queen pay up. You need to get one of those “Nicki Stopped My Bag” shirts, girl. According to Tracy Chapman, in June of this year, Nicki and her representatives begged to use her song. Tracy thought about it, checked her mail, thought about it some more, watched Wheel Of Fortune, thought about it again, and then decided it was a resounding “No, bitch.”
Then, not a month later, Tracy was shocked to hear the Nicki and Nas track “Sorry” made it onto the internet sounding virtually identical to “Baby Can I Hold You”. The track was premiered by Funkmaster Flex, who tweeted a link to the song and played it on Hot 97:
EXCLUSIVE: @FunkFlex Debuts NEW @NickiMinaj Ft. Nas – Sorry – https://t.co/ICDT8avyk5 #IFWT
— Funk Flex !!!!! (@funkflex) August 12, 2018
Charlamagne Tha God also played it on The Breakfast Club. Tracy is calling bullshit, because according to her the Nicki and Nas track “comprises half of the lyrics and vocal melody” of “Baby Can I Hold You”. You can compare for yourself. Here’s Nicki’s low-quality track:
Here is Tracy’s:
The day this all happened, Nicki tweeted and deleted a message saying: “Sis said no”, which is believed to be about how Tracy said they couldn’t use the song, and the lawsuit is using that deleted tweet as evidence that she knew she couldn’t use the song and her camp leaked it regardless. Careful what you tweet kids, you literally might get sued.
Even though Nicki didn’t technically release the song herself, Tracy is still going after her. She wants an order prohibiting Nicki’s camp from ever putting “Sorry” out anywhere again or slipping it to DJs on the DL, and most importantly, she wants a piece of that Queen album pie; asking for monetary “damages”.
I have to hand it to Miss Tracy. Her song wasn’t even technically released and she’s suing for damages. Does she mean to her psyche? Because Nicki didn’t even make any money off the song? If Tracy really wants to stick it to Nicki, she needs to get petty. Tracy needs to call up Nicki’s arch-nemesis Cardi B and sell her the rights to “Baby Can I Hold You”. Nicki Minaj would be so mad, no amount of shoes in the world could be thrown at her to stop her rampage!
Pic: Wenn.com.