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Steely Dan

© Steve Juon

It's amazing that old school artists get mad that rappers sample when they don't realize that rap CREATED the interest in their music in the first place. Nobody would know who Steely Dan was if it wasn't for Tariq and Gunz, ya know? I sure as hell didn't know who Steely Dan was. Given their attitude about rap, I'd rather NOT know who they were. If I was them I'd rerecord the song without the beat and flip them the middle finger.

If I was Riq and Gunz I'd be like "Fuck that, we introduced your song to a whole new generation and you gonna play us like that? Kiss OUR ass. We'll redo the song without you and nobody will remember your crusty old school butts anyway. In fact, consider your song UNsampled. Nobody will ever use your shit again. You'll be unknown just like you were to our generation BEFORE we sampled your ungrateful ass. You coulda had 10 G's and a percentage of the royalty, but nah, you got greedy. So fuck you."

I'm sure Tariq and Gunz would have gladly worked out a REASONABLE sample clearance tied in with a percentage of publishing, but Steely Dan had to play the assholes and say "Give us everything we want, or fuck your song and face a lawsuit for ten times as much." If you're an up and coming rap duo who is facing down the barrel of the same situation Gilbert O'fucking Sullivan threw in BizMarkie's face (all copies being pulled from shelves), what would you do? They had the group over a barrel, and their label coughed it up and probably expects the group to recoup.

They should have rerecoded it with a different beat instead of paying up. That's why I say FUCK Steely Dan for continuing the ugly precedent of greedy old artists taking everything they can from young up and coming rappers because they don't have any artistic ability left to make their OWN new songs -- they have to live off the fat of what they already did.

Peace, Flash

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