Remember how trance artists Arty and Matt Zo pointed out how Will.I.Am ripped off their song for the sake of creating a crappy new collaboration with Chris Brown? Well, turns out Will.I.Am actually did kinda sorta take it without clearing rights or asking for permission. Whoops. Rolling Stone reports …
“Arty is a dope producer so I wrote this song to “Rebound” this last year,” Will.i.am said on KISS-FM, USA Today reports. He continued, “I got in touch with Arty and showed it to him, did a different version to it because I asked him [to] make it newer, because I don’t just want to take your song and rap over it. 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.”
So there you have it: From now on, whenever you wonder whether Will.I.Am’s music is actually an uncleared rip-off of a better song, or if it’s just purposefully reductive because Will.I.Am hasn’t had an original thought in over a decade … the first one. It’s the first one.