The Internets were ablaze yesterday afternoon with word of will.i.am stealing from Arty & Mat Zo's "Rebound" single for a track from his willpower album, "Let's Go." There was a lot of aggression thrown at both will.i.am and Chris Brown, from hilarious pictures to some apparently hateful things being thrown at will.i.am and Chris Brown.
Last night, Laidback Luke took to Twitter to give his side of the situation. Word is he is friends with the producer of "Let's Go," and mentioned this situation to him via e-mail. Luke was told that Arty is actually getting producer credits on the project, and he was confused as to why that information wasn't being thrown out there. You can read all of those tweets up above. Interestingly enough, Arty did tweet that the sample is from the master file; how else would will.i.am have received a master file of "Rebound?" Did will.i.am reach out to Arty & Mat Zo to sample the track initially, and now they're backing away from it? From the screencap of Mat Zo's (now deleted) Facebook post (h/t @EDM), it looks like will.i.am was interested in using "Rebound," but Mat Zo and Arty turned him down at some point. Anjunabeats is apparently still investigating, but there is no new information from them, nor has will.i.am spoken on this.
In another odd spin on this situation, the Wikipedia page for willpower not only lists Arty & Mat Zo as writers and producers on "Let's Go," but Sandro Silva and Quintino are listed as writers/producers on "Bang Bang." And for what its worth, Steve Angello and Sebastian Ingrosso are getting writer/producer credit on "This Is Love."
So what gives? Is the EDM community being trolled into caring about a new will.i.am album? Is will.i.am jacking beats and giving credit after the fact?
(EDM Canada)
