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Jay-Z forgot he owns Tidal

By | Published on Monday 19 October 2015

Jay-Z

Even Jay-Z has forgotten about Tidal, it turns out. And he said so under oath in a court of law, so it must be true.

As previously reported, the rapper gave evidence last week in a court case over the use of a sample of Baligh Hamdi’s ‘Khosara Khosara’ in his 2000 track ‘Big Pimpin’. It’s still to be decided if the use of the sample was legal or not, but Jay-Z insisted that it was not his responsibility to find out before releasing the track – noting that the musical side of it was created by producer Timbaland prior to him arriving at the studio.

“I didn’t think there was a sample in it”, he told the court, according to The Hollywood Reporter. “Timbaland presented me with a track. I didn’t even think about there being a sample”.

Asked why he didn’t think to check out if all the necessary clearances were in place, he added: “That’s not what I do. I make music”.

Then asked to elaborate further on what actually takes up his time, Jay-Z continued: “I make music, I’m a rapper, I’ve got a clothing line, I run a label, a media label called Roc Nation, with a sports agency, music publishing and management. Restaurants and nightclubs… I think that about covers it”.

“I’m not so sure”, said his attorney Andrew Bart. “You have a music streaming service, don’t you?”

“Yeah, yeah”, he agreed. “Forgot about that”.

To be fair, if Jay-Z can forget about a company he only recently paid $56 million for, it seems reasonable that he might also not be able to remember that music he’s involved in needs all of its samples to be properly licensed. Although, as Timbaland will surely testify, everyone involved in the track who was paying attention believed that they were.



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