Legendary Hip-Hop
pioneer Roxanne Shante has filed a lawsuit against Janet Jackson, after the singer
used a clip of Shante’s voice and failed to pay.
The song “Like
You Don’t Love Me,” #13 on Janet’s album Damita Jo, contains
a sampled clip of Shante’s voice saying “so fresh,” familiar
words to those who listen to the genre of music.
“I figured
maybe it was a sheer oversight that they didn’t pay the invoice for using
my voice on the record,” Shante told AllHipHop.com. “Maybe she over
looked it with the breast popping out (the infamous 2004 Superbowl incident),
she just got caught up in the mix. I fell back, like when they get around to
it, they get around to it.”
Damita Jo
debuted at #2 on the Billboard Top 200 Pop Charts, moving an impressive 381,000
copies and taking second place to Usher’s blockbuster, Confessions.
Shante said she
only contemplated the lawsuit after a representative for Jackson called her
and said it wasn’t her voice that was sampled.
“That really
infuriated me," Shante continued. "Any true Hip-Hop head knows it’s
me. The sample comes from [the song] ‘Def Fresh Crew,’ a song that
I did with Biz Markie on the Pop Art label.”
Shante, who has
owned the masters to her own recordings for over nine years, said this is not
the first time she has dealt with the sample clearance issue.
The words have
been used in countless Hip-Hop songs and have appeared on popular break beat
vinyl compilations.
Most people assume
the words come from Biz Markie’s “Nobody Beats the Biz,” which
also sampled the words from the original record.
“It usually
doesn’t go this far, they rectify it. She could pay me with she what would
buy her [expensive] bags [with], it’s the principle.”
Fights over old samples
are as close as Shante is coming to the Hip-Hop industry these days. She has
a thriving psychology practice in Manhattan, New York and is busy raising her
18-year-old son.
“Life after
Hip-Hop for me has been better than it’s ever been. I am not after the
money," Shante clarified. "But how can you come at me and say that’s
not my voice? The sheer humiliation and aggravation has made it go this far.”