Will.i.am Admits to Stealing Beat for 'Let's Go' From Mat Zo and Arty's 'Rebound'
Singer will.i.am has admitted that he stole the beat behind his new song Let's Go that features Chris Brown but claims it is one big misunderstanding.
House producer Mat Zo and Arty accused The Black Eyed Peas front man of using the beat to their song Rebound without permission. Arty used his twitter to allege the plagiarism.
"They never cleared rights through Anjunabeats, who's only one label, who ownes the rights for "Rebound"," he tweeted.
Chris Brown replied in a series of dismissive tweets over the similarity which included, "I don't even know who mat zo Or arty is? I ain't got shit to do wit if ur mad or not. Someone asked for a feature on a record and I did it."
Will.i.am broke his silence on the copyright dispute on KIIS FM earlier today and admitted the unauthorized use.
"Arty is a dope producer so I wrote this song to 'Rebound' this last year," will.i.am said.
He explained that he did not intentionally seek to deny the rightful owners of the beat.
"I got in touch with Arty and showed it to him, did a different version to it 'cause I asked him [to] make it newer 'cause I don't just wanna take your song and rap over it," he said.
"But in a year's time, time's gone by [and] we preferred writing over and using the [original] rebound. Something happened and the clearance ... hopefully we resolved the issue."
Will.i.am also stated that he was a fan of Arty and that he deserved proper recognition.
"I think he's great and the world needs to know about how talented those guys are. It's sad that it's turned into a fiasco but hopefully it's resolved because I'm a fan of those guys to the point where I wrote to their instrumental."
This is not the first instance that Will.i.am has been accused of stealing a song for his own use. He's being sued over the lead single, Scream & Shout featuring Britney Spears from his new album, #THATPOWER. 24-year-old singer Tulisa has claimed that she wrote the lyrics to the worldwide smash.
