Roxanne Shante Files Lawsuit Against Janet Jackson

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 […]

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.”