(AllHipHop News) Sampling is a tricky art that is perpetually in between thievery and inspiration. In a recent interview, famed electronic artist Aphex Twins details how Kanye West badly sampled his song and refused to involve him in the making of the song for My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.
West’s breakup song dedicated to Amber Rose, “Blame Game” contained a piano sample from Aphex Twins’ “Avril 14th”. According to Aphex Twins in an interview with Pitchfork, the My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy song “sampled it really badly” and was not interested in involving him in recreating the sample:
I know that he tried to f###### rip me off and claim that he’d written it, and they tried to get away with not paying. I was really helpful, and when they first sent it to me, I was like, ‘Oh, I can re-do that for you, if you like,’ because they’d sampled it really badly and time-stretched it and there was loads of artifacts. I was like, ‘I’ll just replay it for you at that speed if you want.’ And they totally didn’t even say ‘hello’ or ‘thanks,’ they just replied with, ‘It’s not yours, it’s ours, and we’re not even asking you any more.’
The Aphex Twins sample was later recreated and long-time Kanye West collaborator Mike Dean is credited with playing piano on the song.